Used Guardrail Questions – FAQ

Yes.

Although the used highway guardrail we offer for sale was formerly state property, anyone can purchase our used highway guardrail panel, posts, and hardware. Once removed from state-owned roadside DOT projects, the used highway guardrail panel, posts, and other related hardware items do often become our property. We are at liberty to sell these items once removed from the roadside DOT projects.

Call David today at 1-800-618-7604

The Quality is Very good:

Most of the highway guardrail we remove is in good shape. When State DOT projects require removal of the old highway guardrail system, its often very useable for non-NHS (National Highway System) purposes after it gets into our hands. Our projects often produce tens of thousands of feet of used highway guardrail at a time. That means we’ve got to get rid of it! It doesn’t do us any good just keeping it around.

For years, we’ve said this about Used Highway guardrail panel:

“Used Guardrail -- is Used Guardrail -- is Used Guardrail.”

Its always the same: Strong, solid and job-ready. Every day. Every year. Every decade.

Call David today at: 1-800-618-7604

LENGTH:

There’s basically two different styles (widths) of guardrail and there’s two different lengths of guardrail available in the Americas:

• LONG: a 26’ length panel, commonly called a ‘LONG’ guardrail panel.
• SHORT: a 13.5’ length panel, commonly called a “SHORT” guardrail panel.

Both lengths of the guardrail panels are punched so as to provide one foot of overlap (when installed for roadside applications). Therefore, each length traditionally builds 25’ or 12.5’ (respectively) of barrier, per highway guardrail panel.

The two different styles are W-Beam Guardrail and Thrie-Beam Guardrail

1). The “W-beam” guardrail, is by far the most common type of guardrail panel used in the USA. It derives its name from the shape of its profile, if viewed from the end, (looking at the cross-section of the beam), it appears as a “W” shape. This style is almost always what Americans are seeing, when viewing guardrail on the roadsides of US highways. These panels, (W beams), are 12 inches in height (measured across the back of the “W”) and are slightly more than 1/10 of an inch in thickness. These panels are heavily galvanized to protect the beam from corrosion. A standard W-beam highway guardrail panel weighs approximately 7 pounds per foot.

For the better part of a century, this material has proven itself as an incredibly durable workhorse of the weather resistant, strong post highway guardrail safety system.

2). “Thrie-beam” (or 20 inch wide guardrail ), is a less common style of guardrail but still very widely used across the USA. Americans will often notice that, when approaching a highway bridge, the height of the guardrail panel will ‘transition’ into a wider type of guardrail beam. This wider beam width often fastens directly to the bridge railings. This wider guardrail beam is called Thrie-beam.

Thrie-beam guardrail is simply a “triple humped” version of guardrail as compared to the “double humped” appearance of the more common W-beam guardrail. Thrie-beam guardrail panels are 20 inches tall, as compared to its shorter, much more prevalent cousin – 12 inch W-beam guardrail.  Of course, Thrie-beam used guardrail panel is also a heavier 10.5 pounds per liner foot, and is almost always found in the 13.5 foot length. Like its W-beam cousin, Thrie-beam highway guardrail is 0.105 inches in thickness and is heavily galvanized - making it, (in our humble opinion), the strongest, most durable, most weather resistant guardrail panel commonly deployed on America’s roadways....

Call David today at: 1-800-618-7604 for more information

DOT discourages the RE-installation of a used highway guardrail

As we understand it, the federal DOT discourages the RE-installation of a used highway guardrail panel once it has previously been deployed for roadside service.

Studies have clearly shown how a guardrail panel can be impacted with a standardized impact test parameters (weight, speed and angle of a vehicle), and:

1. During the first impact, the guardrail properly redirects the vehicle, but is significantly deformed in the process.
2. During a second impact using the exact same parameters, the formerly impacted guardrail section fails to redirect the vehicle, and the car crashes through the guardrail barrier.

• Follow this link to see the video: Guardrail Fails Second Test After Impact <https://youtu.be/o1d4NVFtjYo>

Thus, depending upon the severity of given impacts, the used highway guardrail may fail to perform to the same standard for which it was intended if it has previously been impacted. Therefore, once a mission requires the removal of used highway guardrail, (such as road-widening), the current perspective is that this guardrail panel should not be re-installed as permanent highway safety barrier. Thus, the used highway guardrail becomes our property after it is removed.

Call David today at: 1-800-618-7604 for more information

The answer to that question is getting bigger.

Used guardrail is now been being picked up and used by an increasing number industries and application. Here’s just a few examples of the growing field of applications:

• Roadbed reconstruction projects often put our used highway guardrail panel back to work as, Road-side Cribbing material. After roadbeds have been eroded by torrential rains, our used highway guardrail goes back to work. Roadbed construction crews install our solid, durable, corrosion resistant guardrail to build powerfully strong, erosion resistant retaining walls. Both the W-beam and Thrie-beam used highway guardrail have been widely used to restore miles of flood damaged roadbeds along rivers and creeks. See the real thing used here: http://trafficcircle.us/our-products/

• Used highway guardrail is also a steel recycling star. For example: Greenhouse growers apply our used highway guardrail panel in order to facilitate the recycling of their crucial water runoff. When the curved, ‘traffic-facing’ side of the guardrail is turned downward, it creates natural, corrosion-resistant troughs. These ‘guardrail troughs’ also provide a solid platform for staging, maintaining and harvesting plants. These used guardrail plant-platforms are a life-time, corrosion-resistant raised bed, separating the plants from the floor. This also protects the greenhouse plants from potentially damaging foot, hardware and implement traffic. Additionally, the inherent strength of the guardrail beams allow them to be suspended for space-saving capacity. Note the photos of the multiple layers of recycled used highway guardrail in the photos found in the blog post, below:

http://trafficcircle.us/highway-guardrail-used-in-new-developments-for-water-management/

• Used highway guardrail panel is commonly installed in dirt and/or gravel driveway roadbeds, specifically at the more vulnerable locations where road-beds navigate elevation changes.

• Both W-beam and/or Thrie-beam guardrail panels are placed at effective cants and angles (compared to road direction), provide a quick, simple, long-lasting trough which diverts road water runoff. This method of road bed stabilization often stops costly road bed erosion, re-directing water runoff into proper ditches. This prevents thousands of dollars of damage to private roads. We expect that this innovation alone has also allowed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of private road owners to avoid costly major grading repairs.

http://trafficcircle.us/used-guardrail-gravel-drive-water-break-erosion-control-system/

• Large animal livestock growers employ used highway guardrail panels for fast, easy, effective, super-durable barriers. These corrals offer protection for both the livestock and the livestock handlers. Large livestock, (buffalo, beef, rodeo and/or dairy cattle), handlers who use highway guardrail have noted a multiple additional benefits of installing guardrail.

• Experienced cattle handlers have noted a significant calming effect on the animals. They suggest that the animals remain calmer due to the reduction of the animal’s ability to perceive threats and/or distractions from outside the animal’s containment pen. Of course, the heavy gauge and galvanization of the guardrail are overkill in containing animals as opposed to re-directing tractor-trailers.

• Every year, Townships, Counties, Turnpikes, Road Engineers, County Officials, County Engineers and other municipal agencies save thousands of dollars. They do so with useable, clean, straight, non-modified used highway guardrail panel for non-National Highway System installations where W-beam guardrail or Thrie-beam guardrail panel, posts and hardware are applicable.

• Other nations, recognize the excellent, high quality of American made products and know to reach out to us for limitless options on guardrail, cable barrier, hardware and various other highway safety products. The US has invested extensively in engineering and crash testing, therefore, these international customers are pleased to purchase and apply used highway guardrail materials when applicable. States are then able to save huge amounts of capitol by purchasing products which able to serve for decades to come.

• Racetracks also take advantage of used highway guardrail panel, posts and hardware package prices. Rather than purchasing all-new hardware systems, these private enterprises gain the needed safety advantage of a tested, proven, affordable and available highway safety systems without incurring the massive costs of purchasing the new DOT spec guardrail at new manufactured prices.

We all benefit from national federal highway standards which guarantee that all highway safety products perform to the same standards state by state. For highway guardrail, this applies to a uniform panel in these (and other) ways: The width of the guardrail panel, the quality of the steel used, the thickness of the galvanization applied to the highway guardrail, the length of the guardrail panels being used, the punching of every length of used highway guardrail, and every guardrail post which we offer for sale – are basically the same.

The primary standard setting organizations in the USA are:

>American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials “AASHTO” see: http://www.transportation.org

>The Federal Highway Administration, or “FHWA” see: http://www.fhwa.gov

To our customers, this nation-wide uniformity means the used highway guardrail panel which you see on the roadside has almost always been produced to precisely the same dimensions as our used highway guardrail which we offer for sale, here.

Coast to coast, the used highway guardrail panel which we remove from our nation’s roadsides has the exact same thickness of steel - it uses precisely the same mixture of steel - and it has the same heavy coating of galvanization. All of these specifications have been tested to the same rigorous federal National Highway System standards. All of that “Made in the USA” quality, history, testing and strength is behind every used highway guardrail panel, nationwide.

Additionally...

Call David today at: 1-800-618-7604 for more information

Unless the state requires the used highway guardrail materials to be relocated to another state maintained yard, once the material is removed from the state-owned roadside DOT projects, the used highway guardrail panel, posts, and other related hardware items traditionally become our property.

Call David today at: 1-800-618-7604 for more information

The practice of allowing the organization handling the highway safety barrier materials to take possession of the used highway safety materials is highly valued due to the exceptional efficiency of the process. This process generates instantaneously lowered costs for the state, thus, allowing cash to remain in the state’s hands, thus the state’s taxpayers.

In other words, the process of allowing the recoupment, up-cycling and/or recycling of the salvaged / used highway guardrail materials effectively eliminates the demands upon a state’s cash-flow and/or manpower in bearing the burden of the expense for the salvage operation.

The, method of entrusting the up-cycling and responsible recycling to the highway guardrail organization also managing the removal ensures:

-> The state incurs NO additional expense in transport, handling, sorting, indefinite length and space of storage and eventually, the costs to sell the same material again, often after years of storage – all at increasing yearly costs to the state’s taxpayers.

When a state allows materials, (such as used highway guardrail), to pass to the company who manages the removal of the steel from the roadside, it becomes our responsibility to make the most efficient use of this highly flexible material.

However, perhaps the most important factor in this method is this:

The state realizes immediate return of this value by receiving a winning bid for the work at a significantly reduced cost....

Call David today at: 1-800-618-7604 for more information

We’re either working near you now or we’ve already delivered close to you.

Our family’s been innovating steel and farm products since the 1960’s. We’ve been handling highway guardrail materials since the 1970’s. So, we’ve pulled guardrail out from most states in the union. We’ve also delivered used or new guardrail to the majority of the ‘Lower 48’ states, plus Mexico, Canada and other countries. So, if you’re asking,

“How can I find some used highway guardrail for sale in MY state?,”

We say, “Well done, you’ve found America’s number one used highway guardrail supply,” (including YOUR state). Give us a chance. We’d love to help you, too.

FREE QUOTE

The best price is not a “set” price. We are happy to offer yard prices any day, however wholesale pricing is not a “one size fits all” question. When you’re dealing with a wholesale, truckload, point-of-origin distributor, you get better pricing, but we often have to consider logistics of some type.

“Now THAT’s a good price!” We hear it all the time from folks across the country.

We can often really come through for you when we have an idea of where you are and how much you think you might need. Yes, customers often come pick up guardrail material themselves in our yards. But that’s not always the best way. Our trucks are always moving and we manage our own shipping. So our shipping costs are LOW. We want to make our good, used highway guardrail safety products as affordable and accessible as possible. So, most of the time its best to call or fill out and send us the online form and we’ll get give you the BEST PRICE… FAST.

Call David today at 1-800-618-7604 and we’ll give you what you need ASAP.

In the past, when roadside highway maintenance required the removal of the used highway guardrail, the mood of the federal highway system has been to encourage installation of new highway guardrail panel rather than to re-install formerly installed (used) highway guardrail for roadside service.

Call David today at 1-800-618-7604

You found it!

Every year, we remove from roadside, then sort and release over 100 miles of used highway guardrail material across the country. If you’re wondering where you can get good used highway guardrail for sale, you owe it to yourself to get in touch with us so we can help you. Just one call and you’ll have an idea on timeframe, cost and any other questions you might have.

Call David today at: 1-800-618-7604 for more information