Six Novel Uses for Steel Buildings

When you think about steel buildings, you probably imagine skyscrapers or factory buildings, warehouses, garages or barns. Most people have seen photos of steel buildings in use for equipment storage or as grain silos. There are people, though, who look at the skeleton of a steel building and imagine what it could become. These are just six novel uses for steel buildings that have been featured on blogs and steel building websites around the net.

Churches

Churches around the country have found that a steel building is a cost-effective, sturdy and – dare we say it – beautiful solution to housing their congregations.

Home Offices

Steel buildings are skeletons that can be fleshed out in any way you please. Finish the interior walls, add carpeting and flooring, wire it for electricity and even add plumbing if you want. House your home office in style – and away from the distractions of home.

Kennels

Fido deserves the best, and a steel building provides just that. Whether you’re housing one dog or a dozen, steel buildings give you space for dog runs, food storage, sleeping space and even a breeding area. Some steel building manufacturers even specialize in designing metal buildings for animal housing and animal care, including additional kennel space for veterinarians.

Home Theater

Why set up a home theater in a musty old basement or oily garage when you can build a new space specifically for your movie-loving self and friends? A steel building is the perfect space for setting up your own movie theater so you can host movie nights for your friends and family.

Pool House

If you’ve got a pool, you could use a pool house. A pool house provides a place for your friends and guest to change their clothing and use the facilities – without tromping their wet selves through your clean house. A steel building is ideal for use as a pool house for guest use in season and storage out of season.  You can dress it up to match the main building, or choose a classic design – a Greek Revival gazebo, perhaps?

Greenhouse

Need somewhere to start your seedlings or a climate-controlled space for tropical plants? Steel buildings are easy to insulate and can be wired to provide the light and the plumbing that you need to grow just about anything. If you want, you can work with a manufacturer of steel buildings to create a glass roof for natural sunlight and an irrigation system to keep your plants healthy and well-watered.

Whatever your building needs are, there are steel building designs and styles that will suit them perfectly. Before you start planning anything else, consult a steel building manufacturer to find learn the benefits of building with steel.

Secrets to Help You Get a Great Deal on Steel Buildings

Many homeowners are turning to steel buildings when they need extra storage or living space on their properties. They’re versatile enough to serve any use from garages to home offices, and can be among the most affordable of all options for your building project needs. Unfortunately, the influx of homeowners and business owners into the steel building market has also brought out a lot cut-rate metal building suppliers and even some outright scam artists. If you’re in the market for a metal building for any purpose, these industry “secrets” can help you avoid scams and still get the best possible deal on a high quality steel building.

Ask a Pro for Help

Steel buildings are often touted as do-it-yourself storage building solutions, but they can be a lot more complicated than many people understand. Some are indeed very easy and make a suitable home workshop project for a fairly handy person. Others would present a logistical challenge to a professional contractor. If you have a friend or family member in the construction field, offer to spring for a six-pack or dinner if he’ll spend an evening helping you choose the best steel buildings for your needs.

The Lowest Price May Not Be the Best Deal

So you’re shopping around and you notice a website that offers a bargain basement price on steel buildings – far cheaper than you’ve seen anywhere else. The website probably has a great explanation of why they can offer such a low price – the buildings are “surplus steel buildings,” for example, or “overstocks.” In fact, pre-engineered metal buildings are built to order, and many are carefully designed to meet the building codes and configuration of a particular building site. A more likely scenario is that the steel buildings for sale on that site are made of lower gauge steel or otherwise lower quality than buildings you’ll find elsewhere. There’s a reason “you get what you pay for” is such a common saying.

Hang Up on High Pressure Sales People

Buying a metal building isn’t like buying a new television. A poorly constructed steel building is a safety risk for your family, and for your community. Don’t let a salesman pressure you into making a decision or signing a contract before you’ve had a chance to research it thoroughly and understand all phases of the job. A truly professional steel building supplier will work with you to make sure you understand everything and understand all of the options before getting your signature. If a salesperson tries to tell you that the super low price is only available if you sign the contract before the end of the day, tell him no thanks and hang up.

Choosing the right metal building from among the many styles and models of steel buildings on the market is much easier when you take the time to explore your options – and ask a knowledgeable friend or acquaintance to help you understand the steps involved in buying and construction.

Outfitting Steel Buildings for Home Offices

Everyone knows that steel buildings make great storage buildings and garages, but there are far more uses for a well-made steel building than utility and storage. If you’re thinking of putting in a home office so that you can work comfortably from home, for example, a steel building might be provide all the benefits you want in a home office building.

Why a Home Office?

You’ve probably considered all the reasons to build a separate home office, but there are a few you may not have considered.

-          A separate home office makes it easier for you to be productive. The very act of leaving your house and “going to work” signals your brain that it’s time to work.

-          You won’t be distracted by tasks that need to be done around the house because you won’t see them.

-          You’re close by in case there’s an emergency that needs your attention, but out of the way for casual conversation with kids and partners.

-          You can configure the space to best meet your needs because you’re building from scratch.

-          You have a separate entrance – in fact, you have a whole separate building, making your home job much more professional.

Why Choose a Steel Building for Your Home Office?

Steel buildings are cheaper and easier to build than any other type of construction. Steel buildings that are the right size for a home office usually don’t need a dug foundation, and can often be erected on site by the owner and a few friends. That cuts out the cost you’d pay a contractor or steel building erector.

Steel buildings are green. They’re made with 100 percent recycled steel, so they don’t take additional non-renewable resources from the earth. And because everything you need to put  up your metal building usually ships from one location on one truck, your steel building leaves a much smaller carbon footprint than wood or masonry buildings that get delivered in multiple, separate loads.

Outfitting Your Home Office

You can easily outfit your steel building to serve as a home office. Steel buildings are set up using supports along the sides. The interior supports make an excellent framework for insulation and wallboard or paneling. You can have them pre-engineered with channels to run wiring and plumbing, and to hold strapping for insulation.

Plan your ideal home office and sketch it out on a blueprint. Manufacturers of steel buildings can easily translate your dream office into a reality, with windows, doors and skylights exactly where you want them placed. Why try to force-fit your dream into an existing room in your house when you can build it exactly the way you want it from the start?

Steel Buildings for Worship

Is your church outgrowing its current space? Is your church building capital fund a lot lower than you hoped it would be? A custom-built steel building could be the answer you and your church has been waiting to hear. Steel buildings provide special benefits and advantages to growing congregations. If you haven’t considered a metal building to house your community of worship, consider these factors and facts.

Steel Buildings Are Affordable

Steel is one of the most affordable building materials available today, but that’s just one part of the savings. In addition to saving money on the materials to build your church, you can save a great deal on construction by working together as a community to erect your own church building. While large steel buildings require the oversight and expertise of a professional building contractor with experience in erecting metal buildings, much of the actual work can be done by parishioners under the contractor’s direction. In addition to that, the typical steel building needs little maintenance to look fresh and new, so your congregation will save money on repainting and other routine maintenance tasks that wooden and masonry buildings require.

Steel Buildings Offer a Wide-Open Floor Plan

No one should have to sit behind a column when participating in worship services. With a steel building, that’s never a problem. Depending on the style, steel buildings can be up to 300 feet wide with no columns or interior support posts. That allows you to plan an extremely flexible interior floor plan and provide all the space you need without obstructions or obstacles.

Design Your Steel Building for Aesthetics

Many people believe that metal buildings have to be square, boxy and industrial in appearance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today’s steel building designs are attractive and can incorporate arches, soaring buttresses and many other design accents. Your church can choose from many different exterior facades, including marble, stone and brick. That allows your church to choose the aesthetics that best represent your church.

Expandable Building Designs

One of the most overlooked benefits of choosing a steel building to house your congregation is the expandability of steel buildings. In most cases, you can add on to the length of your church building when you need to expand, allowing your church to grow with the congregation.

Most people know that steel buildings make great garages, barns and storage buildings, but few understand how those benefits apply to modern church buildings. If your congregation needs more space, take a look at the advantages and benefits provided by buildings made of steel.

Architectural Details for Steel Buildings

Steel building kits make it easy for homeowners to erect their own steel buildings for use as garages, barns, storage buildings and home offices. While there are only a few standardized styles of metal buildings, there are so many customizations and ways you can personalize your steel building that every one can be unique. These are just a few of the architectural details you can specify for your metal building to make it your own.

Color

The most obvious customization you can make to your steel building is color. While you can buy galvanized steel buildings with no color coating, most manufacturers offer a range of standard colors at no extra cost. The standard colors may be limited to black, white, gray and blue, or they may include a range of the most popular home colors in the area. Don’t take that for granted, though – make sure that your contract specifies that the color is a standard option and not an add-on. In addition, most steel building manufactures offer a range of colors from which you can choose at an additional cost, and some high end steel building dealers will customize a color just for you.

Trim

The trim kit for your steel building generally consists of edging for the places where the edges of the walls meet, roof trim and gutters. In most cases, trim is available in colors to match or contrast with the color you choose for your metal building. In general, your color choices will be similar to those you had to choose for the main building color.

Doors

The doors you choose for your steel building can make it very distinctive. There are many styles of doors available for steel buildings, including garage door styles that open up and barn door styles that rolls to the side on a suspension system. You’ll also have a choice to include pedestrian (or walk) doors so that you don’t have to open the full size bay doors whenever anyone enters the building. The doors are usually an additional charge on your contract, but you’ll have to choose them when you place your order so that the engineers can factor them in when designing the plans for your project.

Windows

Like doors, windows can add character to your steel building. They also can make your steel building healthier and more appealing, both visually and in use. Also like doors, you’ll have to specify the number and location of windows, including skylights, for your metal building so that the engineers can take them into account.

Steel buildings have a reputation for being cookie-cutter constructions, but a little bit of customization can make every steel building completely unique.

Types of Roofs for Steel Buildings

Steel buildings are growing more popular for many uses across the country. Once confined almost exclusively for agricultural and industrial uses, today’s steel building technology has converted business and homeowners alike to the many advantages of modern steel buildings. Metal buildings come in many different styles, from Quonset buildings with their hoop frame construction and domed roofs to A-frame steel buildings that look no different than any stick-built home. You can frequently identify the different types of metal building models by the shape and slope of their roofs. These are the most popular roof profiles for smaller steel buildings used for garages, barns and storage buildings.

Quonset Buildings

As noted, Quonset buildings feature domed roofs, if they can properly be said to have a roof at all. Quonsets are the quintessential steel building in the style that once dotted highways and fields throughout the Midwest and Western states. They consist of metal hoop supports fastened to the ground and curved metal panels that fit over the hoops. The walls and roof of a Quonset building are all of one piece, a curved dome with sloping sides. The biggest advantage of this kind of steel building is its ability to shed snow and precipitation and its resistance to high winds. It’s the ideal choice for barns and equipment storage buildings in areas that get extreme weather events, including blizzards and hurricanes.

P-Model Buildings

P-model buildings are a modified Quonset hut construction featuring domed roofs and straight sides. This model of metal building retains many of the advantages of Quonset buildings, including the snow-shedding capacity. The straight walls, however, allow for more usable space inside the building since there’s more height against the walls. It’s a good choice for buildings where you intend to build shelves against the walls.

A-Model Buildings

A-model steel buildings are the closest to traditional house or barn construction. They feature straight walls and peaked roofs at various slopes. The slope of the roof is often determined by the building codes of the site where the building will be erected. A-model buildings allow for the most height at the peak of the roof and the at the edges of the walls, making them a good choice for garages, factory buildings, home offices and other buildings that will be regularly used by people.

When considering which model of steel building is the right one for you, think about the way you intend to use it, and be sure to check the regulations concerning steel buildings and required codes in your city or town.

The Best Reasons to Choose Steel Buildings for Your Business Needs

When it’s time to expand their property or open a new business, many business owners choose steel buildings because of the many advantages and benefits they offer. Among other things, pre-engineered steel buildings are more affordable, more flexible and easier to maintain than other types of construction. If you’re thinking about building a new home for your business, check out all the advantages offered by steel buildings before you make your final decision.

Up-front Savings of Steel Buildings

While steel is often more expensive to buy than wood or concrete, the cost of erecting a metal building is almost always a great deal less than building a wood or concrete building of the same square footage. The upfront savings are one of the biggest reasons that business owners choose steel buildings for their offices, factories and shops.

Maintenance Is Easier with Metal Buildings

When you choose a steel building you won’t have to repaint as often, since most steel buildings are coated with a corrosion-resistant powder coating. It adds color, inhibits rust and resists staining and other corrosion. That greatly reduces the amount of maintenance your building will need over the years.

Safety and Insurance Considerations

Because metal buildings are engineered to meet all applicable local building and safety codes, they’re safer than wood or masonry buildings. A steel building that’s built to local codes will withstand hurricane force winds, earthquakes and other weather events. They’re less likely to be destroyed by fire or storms. Because the safety risks are so much lower, most insurance companies will charge far lower insurance premiums for your property.

And while the safety considerations are nice for your wallet, the real benefit of a safer building is that your employees, your neighbors and your community will also benefit from the added security.

Steel Buildings Are Eminently Flexible

Many types of steel buildings, such as Quonset buildings and hoop frame steel buildings, are available in a variety of widths to suit your needs. They can be crafted to any length you want so that they fit your needs exactly. And since there’s no need for interior support beams or posts, the entire interior of your building is usable space with a completely customizable floor plan.

Before you make your final decision on your new building project, consider all the advantages of steel buildings. Most building owners find that steel is their best choice.

Top Reasons to Love Steel Buildings

Steel is one of the most important and most-used building materials in the world, especially for factory and industrial uses. Until recently, though, it was uncommon for people to choose steel buildings for use on their residential properties. A lot has changed over the last 10 to 15 years, though, and steel buildings are among the most popular choices as garages, barns, storage buildings and other expansion buildings on private property.

Ever wonder why steel buildings are so popular? Here are just a few of the reasons that so many people choose a metal building when they need more storage or more space on their private property.

Steel Buildings Are Very Affordable

Steel is one of the most affordable building materials available – and it just gets more affordable throughout the building process. Because the components of steel buildings are shipped to you ready for assembly, it takes far less time to actually construct the building. That saves assembly costs, and makes a steel building an even better choice. Even better, smaller steel buildings are often sold as DIY kits, so you can put them up yourself with the help of a few friends and save the cost of construction entirely.

A Metal Building Is a Green Building

The steel used in metal buildings is 100 percent post-consumer recycled. That means that your new steel building doesn’t use any new non-renewable natural resources, a major consideration in these times when the earth’s natural resources are being greatly stressed. In addition, because all the parts of your steel building are made in one place and shipped together, you can build with a far smaller carbon footprint than a traditional wood-frame or masonry building.

A Steel Building Is Versatile

Hoop frame, Quonset buildings and modified arch frame steel buildings require no internal support posts at all. That gives you a totally unobstructed interior to plan and fill. It’s great for garages, because you don’t have to maneuver around support posts, and for office space, where you can create the floor plan and space that is most effective for your intended use.

Steel Buildings Are Easy to Maintain

The powder paint coating on most steel buildings is guaranteed to last up to 20 years without repainting. It’s corrosion-resistant and stain-resistant, doesn’t provide a home or food for pests, such as termites. That reduces the necessary maintenance to almost nothing. There’s no need to repaint steel buildings – a simple power wash every season is usually all the care a steel building needs.

Whether you need a garage, a home office or a storage building for your garden equipment, steel buildings are the most logical and affordable solution. Contact a steel building manufacturer today to learn more.