Steel Buildings Are a Green Choice for Today’s World

In a world where every action we has a chain of effects that can affect people half a world away, many people are trying hard to keep their impact on the environment to minimum. Their efforts often include recycling glass, metal and paper, choosing natural and organic cleaners and other products and choosing automobiles that use less – or no – carbon fuels. Some green choices don’t look like green choices on the surface. Steel buildings are one of those surprisingly green options for today’s world.

Steel Buildings are Green? Really?

Yes, really. If you’re planning to put up a new storage building, garage, home office or even a small office or manufacturing building, steel buildings are a much greener choice than traditional stick-built construction. Wood buildings use a lot of wood, which is renewable, but takes a long time to replace. In addition, every mature tree harvested to provide wood for building reduces the capacity of the earth to deal with the overload of carbon in the atmosphere. Finally, wooden buildings require a lot of additional energy to construct and maintain.

Steel buildings, on the other hand, are nearly always made with recycled steel recovered from other uses. The energy used to smelt and retool the steel is less than that used to cut, saw and process wood for use in building. In general, steel buildings start with a smaller carbon footprint, and they continue to leave a smaller footprint on the earth throughout their usable lives and beyond.

The process of constructing a pre-engineered steel building reduces the amount of work done on site, which means fewer heavy construction machines. And while all the various materials needed for constructing a wooden building are usually transported separately, steel buildings are usually delivered all together in one load, which reduces the size of the carbon trail created in bringing the materials to your build site.

Less Maintenance Puts Less Stress on the Planet

Steel buildings require significantly less maintenance than wooden building. The metal used in constructing them is rust and corrosion resistant, and the paint powder coating generally is guaranteed for up to 20 years or more. That means you use less toxic chemicals in cleaning, scraping and repainting your building, and put fewer toxic chemicals into the environment. And the less upkeep means more time using your steel building and less time maintaining it.

Finally, steel buildings can be up to 80% more energy efficient than wood buildings of comparable size. That means you’ll use less oil and other carbon based energy to heat and cool your metal building, further reducing its impact on the environment. If you’re considering a new garage, office or storage building on your property and are concerned about the environment, take a second look at steel buildings. They may be the greenest choice available.