Steel Buildings: The future of Architecture
In such a shifting and innovative world, one needs to be ahead of the new trends in order to be able to make a profit out of them. When talking about architectural structures steel is the way to do so.
What is a steel building to begin with?
It is basically a building made from steel or aluminum even. These materials are mainly used for storage buildings, deposits, hangars to secure planes and helicopters and even garages or carports, and for the construction of horse stables. When talking about getting ahead of time in order to benefit from this rising change in architecture I am referring mainly to the fact that steel is starting to play an important role in the building of houses. Some may find this idea chaotic, mainly in terms of aesthetic and even money. If there wasn’t any potential in this new way of doing things, we wouldn’t even be talking about it.
Benefits
Where does potential profit come from? Pros, advantages, benefits. When deciding to choose steel as the main material for your next building project you may be initially investing more money than with wood, but in return you will be getting a lifelong commitment from steel. It not only can resist time but weather conditions. For you to have an idea of the density and durability of this material, an interesting fact is that steel has a yield strength that is 10 times stronger than that of wood. What does this mean? That a piece of iron can be stressed by a weight 10 more times heavier than what a piece of wood can be stressed without getting deformed. In order to break at the same point as wood, a piece of steel needs only 1/10th of the surface area. In general terms, wood is 10 times weaker than steel, and the last is much more durable. Because of its density and strength, it can get through strong storms with no need to be surrounded and in a way yielded by trees, which is really convenient for arid terrain with little forestation.
The quality which ads value to this material has been established, now let’s discuss about the costs. To properly acquire a steel building, you need to be aware of all the agents related to the activity, which is nothing new compared to all the paperwork and efforts related to acquiring a wooden building. Just like with a traditional building, a survey of the land will be needed to evaluate whether the soil is suitable or not for a construction with the strong material; permits, which is all the paperwork really, are essential to avoid legal problems so it will be necessary to invest in it; the costs of the land where to build also affect the budget; the workforce should be taken into consideration as well; and also the fees of an Architect. Those are the most important things to take into consideration when thinking about a steel building, and you may have noticed that they are the same as with a traditional building. The main difference lays on the fact that for a steel building the services of an engineer will be required as well as those of an architect.
The average cost of steel framing for a house is between $9.50 and $11 per square foot only for materials, but it can vary between an average of $10 – $25 in total. Of course that depending on the infrastructure and the location mainly (snow and wind conditions require a more complex and so more expensive infrastructure) the price could go as high as $120 dollars per square foot. The cost of a wood framing house, meanwhile, averages between $1 and $5 per square foot.
On normal conditions, disregarding the snow and strong wind factor, steel costs, on average, 5 times more than wood, but it also has 10 more times the resistance and strength wood has. In the short term, steel is in fact more expensive, but on the long term it turns out to be way more functional, given that it does not require of constant maintenance, and so profitable.
