Tips for Making Steel Buildings More UsefulBuildings

Steel buildings, especially pre-engineered and pre-fabricated steel buildings, are among the most common solutions chosen for garages, storage sheds, office buildings and other residential, agricultural and industrial uses. If you’re in the designing stages of your metal building project, these tips can help you make your new structure more efficient, useful and valuable.

Location, Location, Location

Locate storage sheds and garages as close to the main house or building as possible without detracting from the overall appearance of the property. If your intent is to provide convenient storage for your home or business, it makes sense to locate your new structure close enough to be convenient. If you place it too far away, you’ll just be adding inconvenient storage that’s like to go unused in favor of stashing things in the garage.

Choose a Bigger Steel Building Than You Think You Need

Figure up the amount of storage space or floor space you think you’ll need in your steel building, then add 20%, advise experts in construction and contracting. The fact is that most people underestimate the amount of pure stuff they need to fit into a new space, and overestimate the amount of space it provides. Adding an extra 20% to your estimates guarantees you’ll have the space you need and allows more room for expansion if you need it.

Choose Steel Buildings That Can Be Expanded

And speaking of expansion, if you’re building for an industrial or agricultural use, choose a steel building style that can be easily expanded. Many of the most popular styles, such as Quonset buildings and similar arch construction styles, can easily be enlarged by adding another unit to the end of your original construction. When you’re ready to expand, you can simply remove the back wall, add the amount of space that you need and recap the back wall.

Consider Easy Access to the Interior

Roll-up full-width doors or double width-doors give your structure added flexibility. For best access, install both a pedestrian access door and a vehicle access door to your steel building. That way, you provide easy access for people while maintaining the ability to easily maneuver equipment in and out of the space. It’s the ideal solution for a garden storage shed, where you can simply drive tractors, snow blowers and other lawn equipment into the shelter.

In addition to structural decisions you can make when choosing among the many styles of steel buildings available, you can also make style decisions that will help your new structure fit more comfortable into its surroundings. Consider, for example, adding flower boxes to the windows of a garden shed or landscaping around the sides of steel garages to blend them into the existing landscaping. In the end, your new structures will be attractive as well as utilitarian.