Five Differences in Steel Buildings of Today

So you think you know a thing or two about steel buildings. You may believe, as many people do, that metal buildings are either huge skyscrapers or those old steel boxes that used to dot the landscape a few decades ago. Steel building technology has come a long way from the days of Quonset buildings. Today’s steel buildings have seen lots of improvements in construction, engineering and design that make them the most popular choice for garages, barns, home offices and so many other types of structures. Here are five ways that steel buildings today are different than their progenitors.

Attractive

Forget the old stereotype of the ugly steel shoebox. Today’s steel buildings are nothing if not stylish. While you can still buy Quonset buildings and the like, you’ll also find designs and styles that fit right into the suburban and urban landscape without a second thought. In fact, thanks to the versatility of steel, your metal building can take just about any style you want.

Green

One doesn’t often think of steel buildings when looking for green building choices, but the truth is that the steel is among the greenest of construction materials. Most steel buildings are made with 100 percent recycled steel, so you’re not taking more non-renewable resources – like wood – from the earth. Instead, you’re keeping all that steel out of the waste stream and reusing a resource that has already gone through at least one cycle of use. On top of that, steel buildings are more energy efficient in a number of other ways, and even take up less of a carbon footprint, thanks to the way they’re manufactured and delivered to the building site.

Color

Once upon a time, steel buildings manufacturers seemed to have taken their cues regarding color from Henry Ford, who once famously quipped that you could buy a Ford Model T in your choice of color – as long as your choice was black. Not too long ago, you faced similar choices when it came to picking a color for your steel building – only a few of the most basic colors were available. Today, most metal building manufacturers supply their buildings in a range of standard colors that will match most popular exterior home colors, and a lot are willing to mix custom shades to match the color of other buildings on your property precisely.

Fast

Forget about the weeks upon weeks of bolting I-beams and posts together. Today, steel buildings are delivered ready to assemble, with each component for your building clearly marked and ready to put into place. Many smaller metal buildings are assembled completely onsite by the owner of the building and a few friends.

Stronger

Every steel building is designed to meet the safety standards and building codes of your region and community. As long as you supply the codes for your region to the building manufacturer, design engineers will create a building that will stand up to the weather and conditions in your geographical area.

Steel buildings have changed considerably since the day of the Quonset hut. Today, you’ll find many stylish, attractive steel buildings that are perfect for your garage, barn or other home building project.

Steel Buildings Make Great Portable Offices

These days, it’s becoming more and more common to see small steel buildings in residential neighborhoods. They’re used as garages, greenhouses, storage buildings and home offices. In rural areas, it’s not unusual to see larger metal buildings, especially Quonset buildings, being used for grain storage, as barns and to house large equipment. Those are a mere handful of the many ways that steel buildings can be used.

One of the major benefits of today’s steel buildings is how easy they are to erect and deconstruct. Their portability and recyclability makes metal buildings an ideal solution for any business that sets up satellite offices to open new branches. Restaurants, retail stores and other businesses often spend a lot of money renting hotel rooms and conference space in local restaurants, hotels and convention centers to interview prospective employees and provide an HQ for their executive startup teams. Those rentals can run into quite an expense, especially for a company that opens multiple offices and branches yearly.

Practical and Elegant Solution

Steel buildings are a practical and elegant solution to housing and providing office space for the startup team. Pre-engineered metal buildings can be taken apart, unbolted from their foundations and erected on another foundation on another site. Instead of purchasing an entirely new building – or spending thousands of dollars a day to put up officers in hotels and rent conference rooms – a company buys a building once, and then only has to pay for the cement slab foundation in each subsequent worksite.

Better Than a Construction Trailer

Why not just use a construction trailer for the same purpose? Trailers and RVs certainly can be used this way, but they don’t have the same sense of permanence and professionalism offered by a steel building. A well-designed metal building can easily include a reception office, executive offices and a conference room, all contained in a shell-within-a-shell construction.

It’s easy to design a building that will suit the needs of your startup staff, and since those needs don’t change from one location to another, you’ll be bringing the functionality you need with you and just putting it down where you need it. If your building is small and simple, you can easily get your portable satellite office up and occupied within a week. When it’s time to move on to a new location, it only takes a few days to deconstruct and move your building with your startup team.

Steel buildings offer versatility, economy and more. If you’re getting ready to launch a new office or branch of your company, get it off the ground right with a comfortable, well-appointed office that’s familiar and ready to support your staff in style.

Get Tax Incentives for Insulation Retrofits on Steel Buildings

Steel buildings are designed to be easy to insulate, but many owners only do the bare minimum of insulation for budget reasons. If you own or design steel buildings for commercial use, however, a tax incentive that’s available through the end of 2013 can reduce the cost of adding insulation that you may not have installed when you first did your construction. In fact, there are a number of energy efficiency improvements you can do that will make your steel building more energy efficient while providing a little give-back in the way of a temporary tax deduction.

Tax Incentives for Energy Efficiency Improvements to Steel Buildings

These specifics are provided by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Owners and designers of commercial steel buildings can take a tax deduction of up to $1.80 per square foot for improvements that save at least 50% of the heating/cooling energy for a building, providing that building meets ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2001. For improvements or installations that affect either the building envelope, the heating and cooling systems or the lighting system, building owners can take a partial deduction of up to $.60 per square foot, as long as the insulation and energy systems were installed or “placed in service” between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2013.

What Does This Mean for Your Steel Building?

These incentives are not confined strictly to steel buildings, but they are available to owners of commercial metal buildings along with other industrial buildings. Steel buildings have very specific insulation requirements, including the need for a vapor barrier. If you’ve erected a steel building for commercial use since January 1, 2006 – or intend to erect one this year – you may be eligible to take a hefty tax deduction for your investment in insulation.

More Than Just Insulation

In addition to standard insulation, you may also be able to take a deduction for other energy efficiency improvements that make significant reductions in energy use for heating, lighting or cooling. If you’re not sure about whether specific energy efficient installations will qualify for the deduction, your best option is to ask the manufacturer or steel building supplier about it. Many metal buildings manufacturers are actively promoting insulation and other green improvements that may qualify you for the tax deduction, so there’s a good chance your salesperson will be able to point you in the right direction.

Steel buildings are a green choice to begin with, but you can make them even greener – and save a little bit on your taxes at the same time – when you make energy efficient choices for accessories and insulation.

So Many Uses for Steel Buildings

Steel buildings are ideal for many uses, from garages and barns to workshops and storage buildings. These are just a few of the many typical – and more unusual – uses for metal buildings and prefabricated steel buildings.

Business Buildings

In general, people are used to seeing steel buildings used for business purposes. Companies often find that a metal building is the most cost effective option for distribution centers and factories, office buildings and retail malls. Whether you need to house a warehouse or a gymnasium, a steel building is an economical, durable and green choice for your business. Talk to a manufacturer of steel buildings about your needs and find out how easy it is to customize a pre-engineered metal building for your uses.

Riding Arena? Steel Buildings Are a Great Choice

The clear-span construction of most steel buildings provides open indoor space that’s ideal for use as a riding arena. With no posts or beams to get in the way, every seat in the house will have a clear view of the proceedings. A number of metal building manufacturers specialize in designing stables and riding arenas with features designed for the safety of the horses and riders. They’re easy to insulate, which is an important factor for arenas located in colder climates, and can be designed with overhead doors, wall lites and even skylights to make your buildings as beautiful as they are functional.

Airline Hangar? Choose a Metal Building

Steel buildings are also an excellent choice for sheltering larger vehicles, including aircraft, boats and recreational vehicles. How often do you see someone’s boat sitting out on the side lawn, covered with a tarp to shield it from the weather? Quality made steel buildings provide a lot more protection than a tarp – and are considerably more attractive and stylish, to boot. Don’t trust your expensive recreational vehicles and craft to makeshift shelters when you can erect a strong, economical steel building instead.

Store Anything You Need to Put Away

From backyard sheds to warehouses, metal buildings are the ideal choice when you need some extra storage. Each steel building will be custom engineered to meet or exceed the building codes and standards in your area, and will be designed to suit your needs. Thanks to modern technology, steel buildings don’t even look like industrial eyesores anymore. You can choose a profile, colors and trim to fit your new steel structure into your current landscape.

These are just a few of the many different uses for steel buildings. If you need a new structure for just about any reason, take a look at the styles and options available in metal buildings today.

Steel Buildings and Solar Panels: A Match Made in Heaven

Steel buildings are a naturally sustainable and ecologically friendly choice for a number of reasons, but you can make them even more so by building in sustainable energy generation and delivery systems. Solar panels and steel buildings work together very well to make your metal building even more green. Here are some key considerations to think about if you want to add a solar energy system to your steel building.

About Solar Panels

Solar panels work by converting light from the sun into usable energy. The amount of energy they can deliver is directly dependent on the amount of direct sunlight that falls on the panels. Installers maximize the amount of energy by positioning solar panels so that they face in the right direction at an optimal angle to collect the most sunlight. The angle and direction varies, depending on the precise geographic location of the building and on any obstructions that cast shadow on the panels. Steel buildings, which are individually engineered to meet specific tolerances in the building’s construction zone, are also ideally suited for solar panels because they can be constructed specifically to provide the optimal conditions to deliver the most energy.

Positioning Your Building

You’ll get the most output from a solar energy system when it’s positioned on a roof that faces the sun most of the day. The manufacturer of your steel building can design it with a roof that faces in the appropriate direction, or you can ensure that the roof faces in the right direction based on the way you position it on your property.

Angling the Roof

It’s almost always least expensive if you can fit solar panels flat to a roof rather than lifted at an angle on some sort of frame. If your metal building designer is aware that you’re planning to install a solar panel system, he can engineer it with a roof facing in the right direction at the best angle. The best roof slope is between 30 and 45 degrees, and depends on your geographic location. Keep in mind that your roof slope will also have to meet any local zoning standards, especially in areas that get a lot of snow. When the building engineers know the requirements your building’s roof must meet, they can design a steel building that best optimizes the sun’s energy while still meeting the necessary standards for safety.

Structural Strength and Space

Solar panels don’t take up much room. The average residential solar installation only takes up about the size of an average parking space. You can easily fit a solar energy system to power your home on the roof of an adjacent building – an ideal “extra” for steel garages and barns. It’s important that the structural engineers know your plans, however, because they’ll have to take the weight of the solar panel assembly into account when calculating tolerances and ensuring that your steel building meets all applicable codes in your area.

Finally, you’ll also need to set aside space inside the building to install a solar inverter to convert the current from the panels to AC current that your appliances and electrical devices can use.

Steel buildings are naturally sustainable, but solar panels make them even friendlier to the earth. Talk to your metal building supplier about the possibilities for adding solar panels to the roof of your new structure.

Soundproof Steel Buildings Make Great Audio Studios

Whether you have a band that needs a practice studio or want to build an actual professional audio studio, if you haven’t considered how steel buildings fit the bill, you could be missing out on one of the most cost-effective and simple ways to build your own audio studio. Better known as garages, barns and storage buildings, customizable steel buildings are among the most versatile consumer-owned structures imaginable. Here’s how you can use the natural attributes of a metal building to create a soundproof audio studio for recording and listening.

Naturally Soundproof

There are many options to consider when deciding to soundproof steel buildings. The first thing to keep in mind is that cracks and holes in joints and corners can allow sound transfer. Steel buildings are custom engineered to fit tightly together at the corners and seams, so they start out as a natural shell for a soundproof application.

Insulation Adds Soundproofing

Because insulation adds a layer of baffling between your interior and your exterior, good insulation will also serve as a soundproofing material. In fact, you can choose soundproofing insulation and kill two birds with one stone – reduce heat transfer and noise transfer between the interior and exterior. If soundproofing is a little outside your budget, be aware that neither common fiberglass insulation nor blown-in spray cellulose will do much to reduce noise transfer, but heavier types of insulation, such as rock wool or denim insulation can make a fairly big difference.

If You’re Really Serious About Soundproofing…

One of the most effective ways to soundproof steel buildings is to build a room within the room. Most steel buildings are metal shells to which you can add insulation. If soundproofing is important to you, then you’ll need to finish the interior completely with an interior wall separated from the outer wall by a gap that you can fill with insulation. It’s not enough to simply add a layer of drywall because noise blocking requires density and drywall isn’t very dense. If you’re going to use drywall, you’ll need at least two layers thick – and don’t forget that you’ll need to insulate and soundproof the ceiling as well.

You don’t have to make all the decisions on your own, though. Your steel buildings supplier or a general contractor can help you decide on the best and most cost-effective way to insulate and soundproof your metal building so you can use it as an audio studio.

Indulge Your Green Thumb with Steel Buildings

Your green thumb may coax flowers from soil and transform barren land into an orchard, but chances are that the idea of putting up a steel building to serve as a garden shed intimidates you terribly. In fact, small steel buildings are actually quite easy to erect as long as you have a solid foundation on which to place them. If you dream of a tool shed, garden house or even a workshop for your backyard, you might find that a metal building is the perfect solution.

5 Considerations for Buying Steel Buildings

Do you need a new office building? Maybe you need more storage on your property, or you want a place to enjoy your favorite hobbies without bothering everyone else in your house. Steel buildings are a great option for any of those uses, and so many more. They make great garages and barns, storage buildings and workshops. On top of all that, steel buildings are very friendly to your budget and to the environment. If you’re considering purchasing a metal building, these tips can help ensure that you cover all the bases and get the most value for your money.

Before you start looking at steel buildings, call your local building code department and find out if they’re allowed on your property. Some towns don’t all pre-engineered steel buildings at all. Others restrict them to certain zones while still others place no restrictions at all on buildings. You’ll need to give the address where you plan to erect your metal building, and request information about setbacks, clearances and other information about any requirements you’ll have to meet.

If the answer is yes, you’re not entirely in the clear, though. Every municipality or region has its own building codes that must be met when erecting new buildings. Those codes may tell you how thick the foundation must be, how much snow the roof must be capable of holding, how much wind the building can tolerate – in short, they’re a set of safety standards that ensure your building will stand up to the climate and other conditions where you want to erect your steel building. A reputable dealer or manufacturer will always ask you for the relevant building codes. If they tell you that the steel building you purchase will be built to “standard building codes,” find another dealer.

Talk to the steel buildings supplier openly about the purpose of your building and how you intend to use it. An experienced manufacturer can make suggestions based on your needs that you might not have considered. The clearer you are about your needs, the better your building will suit it when it’s eventually built.

Consider the type of roof you want on your building. There are many different design options, including ones that are very environmentally friendly. A green roof for your steel building will make it more energy efficient, saving you money on your energy bills every day for its entire useful life.

Look over your choices for windows and doors carefully. In general, the window and door openings will be included in the price of the metal building, but the doors and windows themselves will be an additional cost. You can save money by choosing economy models, or you can choose attractive windows and doors with high energy efficiency ratings that will save you money over the long run.

And a bonus tip to help you choose the ideal metal building for your needs:

Appearance is important, especially where it concerns garages or storage buildings on residential properties. Shop around to find a steel buildings supplier who can offer you the colors and textures you want for the exterior of your new building.

Extra Costs to Consider With Steel Buildings

When you’re shopping for steel buildings online, you’re going to see lots of claims of low, low prices. In fact, many broker and steel building manufacturer sites will tell you that prefab metal buildings provide you with the most affordable solution to adding space to your property. While this is true – steel is nearly always the least expensive building material available, for example – it’s also easy for inexperienced consumers to overlook the additional costs you may have to pay. Here’s what you should know before you sign a contract for metal or steel building.

There’s No Such Thing as “From Inventory”

One of the most important things to know about steel buildings is that every prefabricated metal building is custom-designed and fabricated to meet the specific needs of the customer. Manufacturers do not buy steel building shells in bulk and ship them out when someone places an order. Every building must be engineered to meet the specific requirements of the building code in the area where it will be erected. When you order a steel building, you’re getting the custom design services of a team of engineers.

Know What the Price Includes

Always know what’s included in the price you’re quoted by the steel building seller. There are two basic options: your original quote may include only the building shell – the structural components, the walls and the roof. Once you’ve signed that contract and put down a non-refundable deposit, you’ll do a second round contract that includes customizations like door and window openings, doors, windows, design modifications and trim packages.

More commonly, your original quote will include the structural components, walls and roof, door and window openings and a trim package that includes gutters, roof trim and corner trim. Doors, windows and design modifications will add to the cost later.

Because every company does things differently, it’s important that you understand exactly what will be included in the cost of your metal building.

Site Preparation

In addition to the cost of the building, you’ll be responsible for the cost of preparing your site before your steel building arrives. Those costs may include clearing and leveling the land, as well as pouring a concrete foundation. You may also have to clear access to the building site, and pay for any required permits.

Shipping and Delivery

Steel buildings are heavy – and delivery costs are calculated on weight and distance. The cost of shipping and delivery will nearly always be added to the cost of your steel building after the original quote.

In addition, you’ll need to consider the cost of erecting your metal building and any finishing touches you want, including electricity, plumbing and insulation.

Steel buildings are certainly an affordable option – often the most affordable option – but it’s important to consider all the costs associated with their purchase. Be sure you know what you’re getting into before you sign a purchase contract.