Things That Affect the Price of Steel Buildings

In the United States, steel buildings are rapidly becoming more popular than wood, brick and block construction. There are a number of reasons for their growing popularity – they’re easier to build, easier to maintain and, most importantly, the prices for steel buildings are lower than any other type of building construction.

Because they’re pre-engineered, pre-cut, pre-drilled and pre-fabricated, steel buildings require very little labor for assembly. Add the reduced labor cost to the fact that steel is by far cheaper than masonry products and wood and it turns out that steel buildings are as much as 60 percent cheaper than other methods of constructing buildings.

Of course, there are many things that can add to the cost of your metal building project, but there are also ways to hold those prices down. Here are a few things you should know about the factors that affect the prices of steel buildings.

Canceled Contracts

When you sign a contract for a steel building, the company will require you to put down a non-refundable deposit. If, after putting down the deposit, you discover that the building doesn’t meet your local building codes or that you have to cancel the contract for any other reason, the lost deposit will add to the cost of your final project.

Changes to the Building

Once your contract is signed, any changes that you make to the design can require a re-drawing of the plans and can add to the cost of your steel building. To avoid additional costs, make sure that your ordered building conforms precisely to the codes before you sign the contract and avoid making changes after you’ve placed your order.

Custom Features

While steel building kits can be very flexible, most have standard features and accessories. If you want customizations to the standard plans, it will cost you. Those customizations are also what make your metal building unique, so balance the cost with your needs.

Taxes

Depending on where you live, your steel building kit may be subject to local and state taxes, which will add to the overall cost of your steel building.

Buying Directly from the Factory

The Internet had made it far easier to buy steel buildings directly from the factory. This can cut out the middleman and brokers, each of whom add to the cost of your metal building project.

Buying Locally

If you buy locally or buy from a manufacturer with a local plant, you can save a considerable amount on shipping costs, which can bring the total cost of your steel building project down.

When you’re shopping for steel buildings, keep the above factors in mind to help you find the best prices on your metal building project without cutting corners that can affect the quality of your building.

Debunking Popular Myths About Steel Buildings

If you’re considering a building project – a garage, home workshop, home office or storage building, among many others – you may be staying away from steel buildings because you believe one of the many myths that exist about them. If you’re avoiding the thought of a metal building for your property because you think they’re ugly, too much work or are poor quality, these myths could be keeping you from choosing the best possible option for your needs. Do you believe one of these myths about metal buildings?

Myth #1: Steel Buildings Are Expensive

A lot of homeowners start pricing wood at the local lumber yard and think that a wood frame building will be less expensive than a precision-engineered steel building. They couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, steel is usually the least expensive building material available for making garages, barns and other steel building projects. In addition, wood requires a lot more preparation for use in building – you’ll need to cut it to size, drill it and frame it – all of which require specific tools for the specific job. If you hire a contractor, his crew will spend considerably more time (at a high cost per hour) building your project – and that doesn’t even count the cost of fasteners like screws and nails or the cost of digging a foundation for a wood-frame building. In short, steel buildings generally cost considerably less per square foot than most other types of construction.

Myth #2: Steel Buildings Are Flimsy

A lot of people fear that steel buildings won’t stand up to the elements well. After all, they’re just held together by screws, nuts and bolts, which might rust or loosen over the years. In fact, every steel building is precision-engineered to meet the local building codes for your county or city and is rated to withstand the most extreme weather events for your area. And because they’re engineered to fit together precisely, it’s almost impossible to put them together the wrong way so you know they’ll be put together right.

Myth #3: Steel Buildings Are Hard to Put Up

You may think that you’ll need special equipment to put up a steel building. After all, those walls are heavy, and you always see heavy equipment erecting skyscrapers, right? Actually, smaller steel buildings can be assembled by a few friends with nothing more complicated than a power drill to secure the nuts and bolts. You don’t have to worry about cutting parts to the wrong size or drilling holes in the wrong places – it’s all pre-cut and pre-drilled for you. All you have to do is put all the pieces together.

If you’ve been hesitating about choosing metal for your building project, put aside all the things you’ve heard about steel buildings and talk to a supplier. What you learn just may surprise you.

Why Steel Buildings Work for Your Project

Many people think that steel buildings are only for the commercial or manufacturing sector. When they think of metal buildings on residential properties, they picture unpainted, rusted metal storage buildings of the type that many communities have outlawed. But there’s much more to today’s brand of steel buildings than providing additional storage. They make wonderful garages and barns and are ideal for home offices, garden sheds and pool houses. If you’ve never considered how steel buildings could work for your project, here are just a few reasons that you should.

Price

You can’t beat steel building construction when it comes to price advantage. Because most metal buildings don’t need a foundation, you save the cost of having one dug, and because all the shaping and drilling is done before the metal building components arrive on site, you save a bundle on contractor and labor costs.

Space

Wood construction requires extensive framing and interior studs to support the structure. Not so with steel buildings. Whether you choose Quonset buildings with their hoop frame construction or clear-span construction with I-beams, you’ll have a completely open interior in which to design your perfect space. Garages made of steel provide maximum space for maneuvering and steel storage buildings give you room for shelves and other organization systems. The interior space provides a completely open floor plan for home offices, mother-in-law apartments and more.

Durability

Steel is the strongest building material in general use. A well-designed and constructed steel building can meet any challenge your region has to offer. As long as you choose a metal building that meets the codes required by your county or city, you can rest assured that it will withstand strong winds, heavy snow and other untoward weather.

Carbon Footprint

Believe it or not, steel buildings are among the most environmentally friendly buildings you can erect. They’re made with recycled steel, so they’re not using up precious resources or tearing up trees for use in building. In addition, because all the components for your steel building arrive at one time on the fewest number of trucks possible, you’re reducing the carbon impact of shipping all the pieces and equipment needed to put up your building.

These are just a few of the most obvious reasons that steel buildings are probably the best choice for your building project. Talk to a reputable supplier of steel and metal buildings to learn about more advantages.

Three Tips to Help You Avoid Substandard Steel Buildings

If you’re considering buying a steel building, you’ve probably already done some shopping around. Chances are that you’ve found lots of websites touting their cheap steel buildings that are wonderful as garages, barns and storage buildings. You may have seen flashy websites and lots and lots of pictures of steel buildings used as home offices, steel buildings used as carports and even steel buildings used as airplane hangars. With all the hype online about steel buildings, it can be tricky to pick the right metal building for your needs. These tips can help you avoid buying the wrong steel building for your property.

Remember You Get What You Pay For

The cheapest priced steel buildings on the market are also usually the poorest quality metal buildings on the market. You really do get what you pay for. There are a lot of steel building brokers out there who sell steel building kits that won’t meet the building standards in your community or that are made from thinner grade steel than you need. Others quote you the price for a bare-bones package that will need many other components to be useful. Always check to see exactly what’s included, what gauge steel the building is made from and how much customization you’ll be allowed.

That said, there are genuinely good deals out there. Do your homework on the seller, and if the price is right and the steel building offers the features you need, buy it.

Do It Yourself Is a Relative Term

You’ll find many DIY steel building kits offered by brokers and manufacturers who promise it’s so easy anyone can do it. This can be true for smaller steel buildings, such as storage buildings and garages, especially if you’re relatively handy and have a few strong friends to help. Larger buildings will generally require the assistance of a qualified erector or general contractor. Before you buy a steel building that you think will be a weekend DIY job, ask the supplier if they really recommend it for a non-professional. In most cases, the metal building supplier can supply you with names of contractors in your area who have experience erecting their brand of buildings. While you’re at it, check the cost of erection and add it to your budget.

Make Sure You’re in the Zone

Before you buy – or even get too far along with your dreams – check with your city or county building and zoning office to be sure that you’ll be allowed to erect a steel building. Some communities ban steel buildings entirely, while others put limits on size, configuration and placement of your metal building. Barns are generally exempt from permitting if they’re outside city limits, but that’s not always the case. While you’re talking with the city zoning officials, find out about the building codes and standards that you’ll have to follow. This information will be vital in helping you choose the right steel building.

Paying attention to these three basic tips will help you narrow down your choice among the hundreds of steel buildings and find the one that’s right for you.

Tips for Planning the Design of Steel Buildings

Steel buildings are built to order, so you’ll get to put your own stamp on the building design. While that’s a neat feature and ensures that your building will meet your needs, it can be a bit daunting if you’ve never designed your own space before. Brokers and manufacturers of steel buildings often work with engineers, so they may not be the most intuitive or helpful in guiding you to make the best decision in the design of your metal building. These tips can help you make decisions about your steel building design so you’re sure to get a building that meets your needs.

Know How You Plan to Use the Building

Imagine how you’ll use the building – what will be stored in it? What do you need to do inside it? How will you get in and out of it? The more clearly you can visualize your use of your building, the easier it will be to communicate your plans to the steel building designer. For example, if you know that you’re building a two-car garage, the steel building manufacturer knows the minimum size for garages meant to house various numbers of cars. Those figures will include the space you need between cars and for getting in and out of the car. If you also plan to use the building as a workshop, you’ll need to factor in space for workbenches and equipment, and possibly locations for power outlets and plumbing.

Likewise, most steel building manufacturers can help you with the minimum size specifications for barns, depending on the type of animals you plan to house in the barn and the type of layout you intend to use. For kennels, barns and other animal housing, be sure to figure in areas to store food and equipment if necessary. Again, the better your idea of how you’ll use the building, the easier it will be to design your steel building.

Consider the Size of Your Building Site

Measure your building site, but don’t use that as a final rule on how much room you have for your steel building. Many towns have strict siting requirements for steel buildings that include frontage requirements and requirements for the distance between the building’s perimeter and the street or abutting properties. In addition, overhead power lines and other infringements on the space may further restrict the size you have available on which to build your metal building.

Get the Building and Code Requirements from Your Local Building Permission Office

One of the primary considerations the engineer and design department will need are the codes and standards that steel buildings in your area must meet. Your local zoning and code compliance office can provide you with the information you need.

Those are all basic decisions you’ll need to make when ordering steel buildings. The more you know about what you want, the better your new metal building will meet your needs when it’s finished.

How They Make Steel Buildings

Steel buildings are an ever-more-popular choice for storage buildings, garages, barns, retail establishments and more. Understanding how steel buildings are built can help you understand the choices and responsibilities that sit on you, the customer, when you decide to erect a metal building. This is the basic process for making the components of steel buildings.

The first step in the manufacture of a steel building is your order. Nothing is done in advance because every metal building is custom designed to fit your needs. That includes making sure that it meets all the building codes and standards for your area. Your salesperson will take your order – along with all of your specialized instructions – and forward it to the steel building manufacturer.

All parts of your steel building will be manufactured in house at the factory. There are no pre-made components waiting to be loaded because each piece is custom engineered to specifically meet every one of your requirements and ensure a perfect fit of all the steel building components.

When your order arrives, it’s assigned to a representative in the order entry department. That person verifies that all the design codes and engineering specifications comply with your contract and enters the information into project scheduling software to start the process and make sure that the fabrication of your steel building is managed as quickly and efficiently as possible. This keeps the costs of your building low and gets it to you faster.

Next, an engineer who is certified by the state in which the building will be erected goes over the building drawings and does another accuracy check to make sure that the building design is the same as the purchase order and that it meets all the applicable building code standards for steel buildings in your state. Once that’s done, he’ll generate a set of permit drawings that you’ll need to get permits to erect your building.

Finally, the process of actually fabricating the components of your metal building begins with the input of all the specifications into the computer that controls the machinery that will do the actual work. Each component of your steel building will be built by a different line in the factory, with the components traveling along the line from station to station as the steel is cut, drilled and welded into shape. The process includes drilling the holes for fasteners and engineering all joints to meet precisely and exactly.

Once all of the components of your steel building are finished, they’ll be counted and checked by the staging department, which is responsible for making sure your order is complete and accurate, and loading it onto the truck or trucks to deliver it to your building site. After a final check, your steel buildings are on the road on its way to you.

Five Reasons Steel Buildings Make Great Garages

Many older homes, especially in urban areas, were built before garages became common. If they had a garage at all, they were usually one-car garages. This doesn’t work very well in this age of two-car families. That’s why one of the most popular uses for steel buildings is to replace one-car garages or to build a garage where the original home builder didn’t include one.

Steel buildings make excellent garages for a number of reasons. If you’re trying to decide what kind of structure and materials to use for your garage addition, here are five reasons that steel buildings make great garages.

Plenty of Room for Cars

Arched metal buildings of the type based on Quonset buildings don’t need any interior posts or supports. That leaves plenty of room for your car or cars. You can drive your car in and out of the structure without having to maneuver around steel posts or other supports or worry about banging your door on the post when you open it to get out.

Available in Many Sizes

Steel buildings are available in many widths, and the standard widths easily accommodate one, two or more cars, with plenty of additional room for storage. If you decide you want to add on to your garage later, it’s easy to expand lengthwise. In most cases, it just involves removing the end wall, adding another side wall section and replacing the end wall.

Match Your Home’s Style and Color

Today’s steel buildings can match your home’s style and color exactly, so your new garage doesn’t look out of place. Steel building manufacturers provide colored garages in many of the most popular home colors as a standard feature, and many of them will  custom mix paint to exactly match your home.

Very Affordable

Steel buildings are among the most affordable types of structure you can build as a home addition. In most cases, they don’t need a full foundation, which reduces the cost considerably. Because they’re delivered with all the components pre-drilled and precision-engineered, it takes less time to erect a steel building than it does to build a standard garage. That also reduces the costs because you’re paying a contractor for far less time.

Nearly Zero Maintenance

Steel is durable, weather-resistant, rot-resistant and unattractive to critters like termites, which means that your maintenance time and costs are very low. If you opt for steel with powder-coated color, your paint job will be guaranteed for up to 20 years with no flaking, peeling or fading, so you never have to scrape and repaint your new garage. About the only regular maintenance needed by steel buildings is a hose down to remove surface dirt.

If you’re looking for the best type of garages for your property, check with a manufacturer of steel buildings. There’s a good reason that metal buildings are often used to house vehicles, after all.

Tips for Environmentally Friendly Steel Buildings

Steel buildings are environmentally friendlier than most other types of construction practically by definition. Because they’re made with recycled steel, they don’t require the use of more non-renewable resources – and they keep tons of waste material out of the waste stream. When you purchase a prefabricated steel building, it’s generally delivered to you in one shipment on one or two trucks, drastically cutting down on the delivery footprint left by nearly every other type of construction. They’re easier to insulate and require less maintenance – fewer nasty chemicals used to keep them from rotting, make them pretty and keep the critters that like to chew wood at bay. Even with all of those benefits, though, there are other things you can do to make steel buildings even more environmentally friendly.

Roofing

Most steel building manufacturers offer you the choice of energy-saving roof options. The color and materials you choose for the roof of your metal building can have a drastic effect on the energy consumption for your new structure. Lighter colored roofs reflect light back rather than absorbing the energy and transferring it to the interior of your building as heat. The reduction in heat gain in warmer climates reduces your energy bill and your energy footprint at the same time.

An even friendlier roofing choice for steel buildings is solar panels. Many steel building styles easily adapt to standard solar panels, which not only reduces your energy consumption. Solar panels can turn your metal building into an energy producer. This option is likely to become even more popular as solar technology advances and solar panels become solar coating and solar paints that can supply clean, green energy to your building.

Design with Environment in Mind

Because your steel building is custom-designed to your specifications, you can design it with energy efficiency in mind. Include extra windows and skylights to reduce the electricity needed to light the building during the day, for example. Likewise, include channels for installing insulation in the interior walls of your steel building. The right insulation can reduce your energy use by up to 60% in some climates.

Accessorize and Build It Out

Beyond the basics of steel buildings, you can also make green choices in the way you outfit and finish your structure. Fans and vents are important to maintaining the proper humidity, but they also can reduce your use of energy for heating, dehumidification and cooling your building. Every choice you make in finishing your building will also have an effect, so make green choices like energy-saving light bulbs, high-efficiency HVAC systems and solar water heating systems.

Steel buildings may be greener by nature than other types of construction, but they can always use a little more help. Make green choices all along the way. Every little bit helps.