Recycling within construction with wood : An investigation of design for disassembly & condition assessment

A building's life cycle consists of four stages; it is designed, it is built, it is used and it is demolished. Only 10 % of the total resources are reused and returned in a circular cycle. In order to achieve a greater use of resources, a change is required already during planning, where uncomplicated disassembly and reuse must be prioritized. Furthermore, before reusing it is important to be able to ensure that products and materials can maintain the right quality and therefore a quality assurance needs to be done. The aim of the study is to investigate what should be taken into account when assessing the condition of recycled wood and how a building can be designed to be dismantled easily. The goal is to produce a model for condition assessment of wood and to give suggestions on how planning for disassembly can be applied in current working methods. The study contains a literature study, interviews and a case study on a building designed by Tyréns. The literature study was performed to highlight the state of knowledge regarding reuse and planning for disassembly. The interviews were conducted to supplement the literature study. The case study shows examples of how design for the disassembly of wood can be implemented on a real project. Today, there are no clear guidelines or regulations for how wood should be assessed for condition. On the other hand, it appears in the Swedish Housing Agency's construction regulations, EKS 12, that recycled material must answer to the technical capacity requirements that exist for the building product. In order to establish if the construction product is still of good quality, a condition assessment consisting of various types of verifications should be carried out. The verifications should be adapted according to the existing condition and the planned area of use. To facilitate reuse, planning for disassembly can be carried out during the design phase. This requires knowledge of planning for disassembly and can be implemented in businesses using existing guidelines. Consideration should be given to how the lifetime of components can be extended and which design methods cause the least damage to the materials. Furthermore, the design should be adapted according to which standardized components are available on the market.