Repurposing Reclaimed Timber Components

Sammanfattning

The construction sector is responsible for a significant share of Europe’s material waste and carbon emissions, yet reclaimed timber from demolition remains largely directed toward energy recovery rather than higher-value material reuse. This raises the question of whether reclaimed timber components can be repurposed into building products that retain material value and contribute to circularity.Previous research has demonstrated the feasibility of producing engineered wood products such as CLT and glulam from reclaimed timber, with meaningful reductions in embodied carbon. This study describes the process of recovering, assessing and refining timber components in a workshop setting and uses the processed material to fabricate and evaluate a prototype of a modular non load-bearing wall. The prototype is assessed through mechanical testing, including axial loading, four-point bending and glue line shear tests and evaluated against the principles of SS-ISO 20887:2021 for design for disassembly and adaptability.The results show that the wall element could be constructed entirely from reclaimed timber components and that its mechanical performance was sufficient for its intended purpose although no element was taken to failure. The refinement process was carried out in two stages, resulting in a total volumetric loss of 48.7%, with a first stage loss of 17.7% and a second stage loss of 40.6%. Larger components such as beams and floorboards lost up to 71.6% and 63.7% of their volume respectively, while studs and cladding lost 49.6% and 38.8%, suggesting that designs should be adapted to the dimensions available rather than processing material down to a predetermined target. Economic viability is highly dependent on the end product having a value that justifies the production cost. The design for disassembly and adaptability assessment demonstrated improvements over a conventional wall, mainly in reversibility of connections, ease of access and support for reuse with the main limitation being the permanent adhesive bond between panels and frame and the non-standardized component dimensions after refining.