Choosing Wall Accessories for Steel Buildings

When erecting steel buildings, the accessories you choose can make the difference between the steel building of your dreams and a nightmare that is barely livable. This is especially true of roof accessories, which can seriously compromise the integrity of your metal building if you choose the wrong ones. Wall accessories are a little more forgiving. If you pick out the wrong ones, it will be mostly aesthetics that are affected. The differences the right wall accessories can make to your steel building, however, can’t be understated. Depending on the ones you choose, wall accessories for steel buildings can increase the natural light inside, make your building more accessible and improve ventilation. Here’s a quick look at some popular wall accessories for steel buildings.

Translucent panels can replace some of the metal panels in your walls, providing natural light for the interior. They are designed specifically to allow the light in without compromising your privacy. When you place translucent panels high on the walls, they can significantly change the ambient light in your entire building.

The big difference between translucent panels and actual windows is that windows can generally be opened while wall panels are fixed in place. In some cases, you can buy windows for your steel building from the manufacturer, though some don’t offer windows and doors for sale. If you buy the windows separately, it’s important that you choose them before the plans for your building are finalized. This will allow the engineers to include the appropriately sized openings in your walls for each door and window you choose.

The same holds true of the doors you choose for your building. There’s a wide variety of door choices available for steel buildings. Many people opt to have both man doors and service doors for their structures so that people can walk in and out of the building without having to roll up an overhead door or other garage type doors. Just like windows, it’s important that the manufacturer know the styles, brands and specific measurements of all doors and windows as well as the locations where you want them in the building.

Do you need to provide easy access to the interior for heavy equipment? Overhead garage doors are only one of your options. One of the most popular options for large door in steel buildings is the rolling or sliding barn door. They’re widely used on barns and sheds in agricultural uses and on aircraft hangars and other buildings where access for large equipment is important.

It’s also possible to designate an area of the exterior walls that you want left open, where perhaps you want to use a different exterior finishing system for design or architectural reasons. You just have to let the engineers know so that they can calculate the tolerances and ensure that the building is structurally sound.

There are many ways to personalize and customize steel buildings, and various types of wall accessories are only a few of them. Just keep in mind that you need to make most of these decisions before the architectural and engineering plans are finalized so they can be taken into account in the finished building and fabrication plans.