Replacing a Corroded Steel Salt Store for Kent County Council
The problem with steel and salt
Kent County Council’s existing salt store had reached the end of the road. It was steel-framed, and years of storing chloride-rich de-icing salt had corroded it so badly the building was condemned. That’s the catch with salt storage: it’s one of the most aggressive environments there is for structural steel. Airborne chlorides and moisture eat away at the frame, maintenance costs climb, and eventually the structure fails.
The council needed a replacement that wouldn’t go the same way, built from materials that could actually cope with what was being stored inside it.
Eurodome's solution
We designed and built a new LD-27 timber store, choosing materials for durability in a chloride-heavy environment from the outset:
A robust reinforced concrete wall system to retain the stored salt
A timber structural frame and timber roof, removing the corrosion risk that comes with exposed steel
A building purpose-designed for the long-term storage of de-icing salt
Swapping steel for timber and concrete deals with the root cause rather than the symptom. Timber doesn’t corrode in salt the way steel does, which is exactly why it outlasts it here.
The finished store
Kent now has a modern, purpose-built salt store designed for longevity and low maintenance. The timber frame and roof with reinforced concrete walls removes the failure mode that finished off the last building, so it should support the council’s winter maintenance for decades rather than years.
The finished building on site:
Salt storage from the UK’s dome specialist
Eurodome has been building salt stores for highway authorities for over 40 years, with more than 180 timber structures standing across the UK and Ireland, many built decades ago and still in service. That track record is the whole point: timber is the material that survives salt when steel doesn’t.
We deliver the full job ourselves and are CHAS Gold, Constructionline Gold, IPAF and ISO 9001 accredited, which is why councils keep coming back.
If your salt store is corroding or past its best, take a look at our dome timber barns or request a quote and we’ll talk through your project with you.