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Buying And Specifying Treegrates
Treegrates are made from many different types of materials. Tree grates can be made from cast iron, cast aluminum, cast bronze, steel plating, steel grating, stone, cast concrete and even wood.
Cast iron treegrates are probably the most commonly specified treegrates, because they are durable and inexpensive. The drawback with cast iron is that even though they are made from recycled metals, there is a lot of waste that is created in the manufacturing process. In fact so much waste is created that at lest one plant in Mexico shut down. Besides carbon dioxide, cast iron treegrates produce a lot of other solids waste that is very expensive to dispose. Coal is used to metal down the iron and oil is often burned in the manufacturing process, because the primary source of iron is engine blocks.
Cast aluminum treegrates are not specified as often as cast iron, because of the cost. In interior applications aluminum is the most popular treegrate, because of the superior finish characteristics not found in iron. Aluminum is also very light way and can off set part of its cost in cheaper transportation and installation costs. Aluminum is much cleaner that iron, because it melts at lower temperatures and is often melted with natural gas not coal. Cast aluminum treegrates are probably the most environmentally friendly treegrates.
Concrete treegrates are very popular because they are relatively inexpensive. The drawback is that they are very heavy and expensive to transport and install.
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