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Archive for January, 2010

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Using Solar Energy Panels on your Steel Buildings: Icing on the Cake

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Steel buildings are known for their efficiency in construction and resource utilization. This means steel buildings have the least carbon footprint among all other construction material. It also utilizes little of precious natural resources like water that are heavily used in more traditional building constructions. Therefore by using steel buildings, you have already done a lot to save and protect the environment. Since steel is almost completely recyclable, it also helps to move towards a more sustainable future.

Steel buildings also help cut running costs quite significantly. By property designing insulation pads for the building during the steel building construction, the costs of heating and cooling can be reduced. This makes steel building maintenance and running costs to be much less than their traditional counterparts.

Now, there is another step that you can take with steel buildings – install solar energy panels for your building. This will further help you towards going green and using renewable energy sources to power your building. Solar panels can add the element of social responsibility to your building by helping you go towards reducing your carbon footprint further. In addition, solar panels are like an intelligent investment as they help you save on your electricity bills for many years to come.

By installing solar panels for your steel building, you can now become energy sufficient, without having to depend on the grid for your needs. In addition, depending on where you live, you may also get to sell the electricity that you produce to the grid. This can translate into direct profits. The initial cost of installing solar panels can seem daunting at first. However, the equipment comes highly subsidized because governments want to promote the use of cleaner energy sources. There are a variety of financing options available for renewable energy sources that you can avail of.

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Posted in steel building construction | 31 Comments »

How Steel Buildings Help Save Money

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Steel buildings are not only great structures from a functional and aesthetic point of view but also go easy on your pocket. The cost of a steel building can be quite significantly less than a conventional building of similar dimensions and utility. From afar, it is almost impossible tell them apart. In addition, steel buildings are environmentally friendly, take minimum time and labor to erect and can be highly pleasing to look at with a great degree of aesthetic beauty incorporated in them.

When you go in for prefabricated steel buildings, the cost decreases even further owing to machine automated manufacturing processes. In addition, these buildings have a very low cost of maintenance. Steel buildings are also good on the energy front, and you can save money for your heating and cooling costs. Simple insulations with your steel building can prove to be very effective against temperature fluctuation outside. They also allow for a number of architectural elements to be incorporated, like skylights that can help save a lot of money in the long run. Thus steel buildings not only are good during the construction process but also for long term building maintenance.

In addition, steel is very easily recycled, so if you no longer need your building, you can always recycle it. Paints for steel buildings are quite cheap and help give a great artistic and aesthetic look to your building while also preventing rust and other wear and tear over the years.

Steel buildings, especially the prefabricated ones, require very little labor to put them all together. This means you will only end up spending for the transport to your site – the bolting together of the whole structure can simply be done by you. Even if you do require some labor, it is usually cheap and you will require very little number of people.

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Best Known Steel Buildings

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Many a times, steel buildings evoke a response that is related to low cost low quality housing units after the World War, which is far from truth. In fact, that wasn’t even the time when the best steel structures were erected. The best known steel buildings predate this era and have stood as monuments testifying the efficiency and effectiveness of steel as a structural element, central to all construction. Here are a few best known steel buildings in the world –

The Sears Tower is perhaps one of the most famous towers round. It is today the fifth tallest building in the world and has the highest habitable floors and elevator rides. From the top of the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower), you can actually see four states! The Sears Tower has been the pride of Chicago for a very long time. It is fairly modern, being completed in 1973, but is still quite beautiful and full of relevance even today.

Paris has one of the finest steel buildings in the world. Eifel Tower, the pride of Paris, is a gigantic steel building that was built in 1887. Over a century old, it is still one of the best tourist attractions in the world. It was also once the tallest building in the world, just like Sears Tower. Steel buildings tend to be the tallest, owing to the strength and stability of the structures! The Chrysler building in Paris is another amazing building in Paris from the 1930s and was one of the best and most popular buildings in the whole of Europe. It was the Empire State Building that finally took the sheen off Chrysler Building!

Germany had its fair share of steel buildings as well, with one of the best engineers and scientists of all time working on them. The Seagram Building, for example, is a famous building with a very strong and sturdy skeleton that is at once fully functional and artistically beautiful.

Steel buildings occupy a very special place in history and are sure going to shape the future as well.

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Posted in Steel Buildings | 11 Comments »

A Brief History of Steel

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

In order to fully appreciate the value of steel buildings, it is important to understand what is steel and how it came into being. This short history will help you appreciate the value of steel and the role it has played in transforming our society.

Steel primarily contains iron and carbon, with the fraction of carbon varying according to the type of steel (usually between 0.4% and 2.1%). Steel is preferred over iron as it is more ductile and strong. In addition, by varying the quantity of carbon and other trace elements like tungsten, manganese, chromium, etc. the properties of steel can be greatly varied depending on the application. One property that immediately distinguishes steel from the different types of iron is the fact that steel is rust-proof, a very important property not only in buildings but also in many other applications.

The processes for mass production of steel came about in the 17th century, though steel was made much earlier too. In fact the earliest remnants of steel found in India date back to 300 BC, but these were at a small scale. The mass production of steel has helped shape the industrial revolution in which many components needed for several different machines were made out of steel. Today, there are highly sophisticated methods for steel production that ensure a very high quality without cost escalation – keeping the property of mass production intact.

Today, steel is one of the most commonly used materials in the world and also the most recycled material. This makes it ideal for the future where the world moves towards sustainability and a green future. Structural steel, used in making buildings, was recycled up to 97% in 2007, showing a very high rate of recycling and making it ideal for people who care for the environment.

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Estimating the Costs of Steel and Steel Buildings

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Steel has undergone tremendous changes in prices because of new technological advances that tend to produce better quality metal at lower prices. This is why the housing industry prices also fluctuate quite a lot with the prices of steel. Since the trend has been that the prices go down and the quality of product improves, it is only fair to assume that steel buildings will become highly competitive in the near future.

The usual cost of steel (as of 2009) per ton of steel is about $275 as per the IMF records. The good thing is that steel being extremely strong and durable doesn’t require a whole lot of material during construction. As an example, straight wall steel buildings, which are the more traditional and simple buildings, can today cost as little as $7 per square foot.

Domed buildings are also becoming more and more popular, and these can be even cheaper than the straight walled steel buildings. This is because they use less steel for building and therefore prove to be more economical. One disadvantage is that the available space decreases due to the shape of the dome. Thus there is a trade-off and usually both the options are quite good. Steel buildings are not very expensive to build but offer some of the best quality buildings of today, both in residential and commercial spheres.

The most popular steel buildings are homes, garages, sheds and boat storages in the residential sphere and mini-storage, repair shops, aircraft hangars, offices, commercial buildings, retail buildings and stores and factories in the commercial sphere. It is only possible with steel to offer such diversity and versatility in building – from the very small homes to huge commercial complexes can all contain the same basic building material – steel. This is unprecedented in the history of buildings.

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Posted in Steel Buildings | 14 Comments »

Steel Housing: Your Dream House is not Far

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

What would your dream house be like? I am sure every one of us has a different idea for this, a picture in the mind that has prevailed no matter what. We all have our eccentricities when it comes to dreaming about the ideal dream home. However, to turn this dream into reality is often the toughest part due to a variety of reasons, affordability perhaps being the most important one. For example, you may want a house that is big enough to be called a palace, but it is quite likely that you do not have enough financing options for this dream project. The solution to your problem is now not far away. Steel buildings offer everything that conventional homes can, but at a much reduced and affordable price. What is more, they even come with added benefits that are not apparent at first sight.

To remove any misconceptions, a steel house can be molded and customized into any form that you want, and you can select the size of the house to the color of the windows. There is absolutely no difference in appearance between your steel home and the ones made using conventional materials. Steel housing is highly affordable, and therefore you get even higher freedom to choose the best elements of architecture and design for your dream house. Added to this, there are inherent benefits of steel. Steel houses are particularly resistant to fires and other unforeseen unfortunate events like cyclones or typhoons. Therefore you can be assured that structurally, your home is better than the best houses made from other materials. Being light and strong, steel homes do not require as much material as other conventional building materials like wood do, which greatly reduces the cost. Adopting prefabricated structures will further drive down costs by a great deal and will give you all the freedom you need to design and customize the size, dimensions, shape and design of your home.

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Posted in Residential Steel Buildings | 10 Comments »

Steel Storage Solutions: Get rid of your Storage Woes NOW!

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Many industries need a storage building for their raw material and finished goods. In fact, for most goods, like agricultural and industrial goods, you need a good storage space to keep goods intact and in proper condition. Depending on the size of your business or farm, you may require varying sizes of the storage building. Whatever your requirement, steel storage buildings are the ideal choice that you should consider for building any kind of storage structure for all your needs. This is because steel has all the desirable properties that you would want in a storage facility.

Firstly, steel buildings can be scaled up and down depending on your requirements. You can build a very small mini storage unit for a small industry or you can have a really huge structure made out of steel. Both these are going to be the best structures possible.

Secondly, steel buildings are fireproof, which is a very important property that you would like your storage building to have. This means no more losses in an unfortunate fire incident that can make a small industry go bankrupt. Also, you can be quite assured about the safety of your goods inside a steel structure as it is not easy to break into such a facility, and is also safe from other natural factors like extreme weather and wind conditions.

Thirdly, steel structures are simple to prefabricate. This means the whole basic building blocks of your structure can be built in the factory and then shipped to your site and assembled into the storage structure. This saves a lot of time and money for your building.

Fourthly, steel structures are the cheapest solution to your storage needs. For the given required strength, steel needs a very small weight of material as compared to most other building materials. Therefore you save on material costs, and thus the overall cost. In fact, the saving for a huge storage structure can be very significant. All these factors makes a steel storage facility the best solution to all your storage needs.

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Posted in Steel Storage Buildings | 4 Comments »

Farm Structures: Thinking Steel

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Farms usually have their own unique requirement with respect to buildings. Farm structures like barns, diaries, and other storage facilities need special care during construction to ensure the quality and longevity desired of them. Now the solution to all the problems of farm structures is out, and the secret is to use steel. Steel buildings solve almost all the problems that farm structures have been facing for the last several hundred years.

Farm structures tend to be big, which usually involves escalation in costs of building. However, when you use steel, the cost can be kept under control because steel has a very high tensile strength that holds the whole structure together without using a lot of material. This is a huge relief because any farm structure needs to be strong and sturdy to weather any extremes in wind and other local conditions. Steel farm structures are especially efficient in doing just this.

The building process itself is greatly simplified in case of steel farm structures. This is because most steel farm buildings can simply be used in the prefab state – prefabricated in the manufacturing facility and assembled in the farm on site. This directly translates into huge savings in terms of the construction costs. You no longer need expensive services of architects and labor. You will simply need a few extra pair of hands to help you fix up the whole structure, and with the help of your family and friends, you can easily fix up the whole steel farm building all by yourself without any complications.

Even after the structure is built, steel farm structures have their advantages in that they are simple to maintain. Simple soap and water is mostly sufficient to clean up the structures, which is a great time saver. In addition, steel structures are fireproof, which is a great advantage in a place like a farm that is susceptible to fires.

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Posted in Steel Farm Buildings | 9 Comments »

Why Choose Steel?

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

There are many construction materials out there that you can use to build a building – your home, office, commercial complex or anything. Why then, should you consider steel? Is it just another construction material that is a passing fad or is it here to stay? The answer is, steel is a very fundamental ingredient of all future construction activities, and this is not because it is in vogue today, but because its fundamentals as a construction material are so strong that it is hard, in fact impossible to replace steel. With a plethora of advantages that steel offers, you should definitely consider steel seriously if you are serious about a high quality structure that will stand the test of time.

To see why and how steel forms the basis of strong and sturdy structures is not difficult. It is highly durable and strong, with a high strength to weight ratio. What this means is that to provide a given stability to your structure or building you will need far less quantities of steel than other building material. In addition, you can use a steel to provide for extra strength if you live in an area prone to say cyclones or typhoons. This is not always possible with other construction materials because there is a limit to how much material you can use. However, since a small quantity of steel also provides high strength, a little more can be added to provide the perfect structure that is stable and ready to meet any challenges.

Steel buildings end up being cheaper than almost all other conventional building types. They are easy to maintain and seldom require maintenance. Steel is also very amenable to prefabrication or pre-engineering, which is a way to build faster and efficient structures in the shortest of time frames. Affordability and strength combine to give steel the advantage that other materials can never compete with.

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How Pre-engineered Steel Buildings are Redefining Construction

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

If you think that pre-engineered buildings all look the same and are like clones, then think again, because sooner rather than later you are going to see a lot of these around. Steel buildings are fast redefining the way buildings are constructed. They combine all the essential qualities of a building into one – speed, efficiency, low cost, survivability and flexibility. Never before have so many building qualities been wrapped into a single construction solution.

Pre-engineered steel buildings are cost efficient and provide the highest building quality. These parameters have previously been inverse to each other, but not anymore. Steel buildings can weather the most severe of storms where ordinary brick and mortar or wood will simply fly away and destroy. Also, these are easy to maintain and seldom need repairs and reconstruction activities, which reduce the overall cost of owning the house or the building.

Another great advantage of these structures is that the building can be completed in a much shorter time than traditional buildings. This is because the individual parts for the building are produced in the factory and these are then assembled on site where the building is being built. However, you do not need the help of complicated and time consuming processes during the assembly. For example, there is no welding involved during the construction, which is a great time saver. Also, you can build these in harsh terrains and lands without much difficulty. This makes them highly flexible and customizable.

Finally, you can customize your steel building in any way you like, just like with any other house or structure. You can make use of advanced technologies to include all the elements of standard construction. So apart from the usual doors and windows, you can have skylights and parapet extensions to make your building special the way you want it to.

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