From Dairy Sheds to Architectural Homes
Red Weld spreads its wings beyond Leeston.
Jul 28, 2021
Red Weld
Engineering is more than your average rural engineering or fabrication shop.
From their unassuming premises in Leeston they take on jobs,
throughout the South Island and farther afield, that go beyond the agricultural.
The Red Weld team can be found building Architectural homes in Queenstown or dairy sheds on the East Coast of the United States.
Red Weld was founded in 2013 when local lad Brant Hammett
returned from overseas to find that the premises where he completed his
apprenticeship were up for lease. Faced
with the prospect of a daily commute into Christchurch or doing his own thing
in Leeston, he chose to do his own thing in his home town.
At the age of 15 Brant started his apprenticeship at a local engineering workshop. When this was complete, he headed off overseas for some life experience. Brant worked for 7 years in the mines in Western Australia doing repairs and maintenance on the plant and heavy machinery
Red Weld has steadily grown over the years and now employs 8
people, which include Brant’s sister doing the accounts & admin, a foreman,
and the rest of the crew fabricating steel on the shop floor.
The focus has been on getting a young team together and
doing a great job for the customers. To
enable this, Brant puts emphasis on increasing the skill set of the team. This includes the two apprentices who are now
following in his foot-steps.
The team do much in rural construction, maintenance and repairs. As part of a Joint Venture, with Donald Engineering in Edendale, the team have had a couple of trips into the US to build dairy sheds in the rural area surrounding Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and Atlanta, Georgia.
The area that is providing much excitement for the Red Weld
Team is all the work they have been doing in the Architectural Residential
space, in Christchurch, Wanaka, Queenstown and Kaikoura.
The attraction and beauty of these jobs is that the steel work of the team is on show, and is not all hidden away.
A particularly challenging job that Red Weld completed in recent
times was a house on a steep site on Cannon Hill in Christchurch, which has
views over Christchurch to the Southern Alps. Red Weld fabricated the steel
sub-floor framing for this Architecturally designed house for JD Homes. United Steel was pleased to be able to assist
Red Weld with the supply of structural
steel for this project.
Videos of the subfloor framing and of the completed house
can be found here
and here.
Even though Red Weld have further growth plans, and aspirations to own their own premises in the future, this does not stop them giving back to the local community where it all began. They are proud sponsors of the local rugby club.