Ventilating Steel Buildings

One of the considerations you’ll have to take into account when putting up steel buildings is ventilations. Today’s modern construction technology allows manufacturers to create steel building components that go together into metal buildings that are practically airtight. That’s great for your thermostat and your energy bill, but it also means that steel buildings can fall prey to condensation, which invites mold and mildew to form in the insulation between the outer and inner walls. Luckily, proper design can help you avoid the worst problems that come with condensation. All you have to do is make sure that you provide proper ventilation. A supplier of steel buildings can help you make the right ventilation choices for your metal building.

How Much Ventilation Is Enough?
A number of factors will affect how much ventilation your building will actually need. Those factors include the size of your steel building, its location and the way it will be used. If your steel building will only be used for storage, for example, and it will be rare for anything alive – people or animals – to spend much time inside it, you’ll need much less ventilation than if you’ll be using it to shelter livestock or if people will be working in it. That’s because people and animals breathe and increase the moisture inside a building, and because you’ll have to make sure that the air quality inside you building is healthy for them to breathe.

Engineers who design steel buildings need to know how you’ll be using your metal building so they can design it to support the ventilation shafts, louvers, fans and other devices that will help reduce the moisture content in your steel building.

Ventilation Types for Steel Buildings
Most steel buildings are ventilated using a combination of ridge vents, circular vents and louvers, with or without fans. In most cases, a single ten-foot ridge vent is sufficient to ventilate a 2,400 square foot building, as long as you’re not using your metal buildings as barns or offices. In that case, you’ll probably need to provide louvers or vents near the floor to provide cross ventilation in your building.

For the kinds of steel buildings that generally are built for home use – storage buildings and small workshops – you’ll usually get enough ventilation from a few louvers placed to maximize the chances for cross-ventilation. An experienced steel buildings supplier or manufacturer can help you decide on the best options for ventilating your metal building.