Steel Buildings Offer Shorter Construction Schedule

Steel buildings are popular in the consumer market as garages and storage buildings, barns and home offices, but they’re even more popular in commercial construction. One of the biggest reasons that steel buildings are so popular with commercial concerns is also a major benefit to the consumer market: the shorter construction schedule. The fact of the matter is that it takes much less time to put up a metal building than it does to construct wood frame or masonry building, in large part because much of the work is completed offsite. The shortened construction schedule means that the end user spends less time preparing and building onsite and saves a considerable amount of money otherwise paid to contractors who don’t have to spend weeks or months cutting, drilling and fitting pieces together to construct a frame.

The exact length of time it takes for your steel building to be up and ready for occupancy depends on the specific design and size. A look at the standard decision and construction process for steel buildings can show you where the streamlining makes the entire metal building construction process faster, easier and more efficient.

Once you’ve signed the purchase agreement, the manufacturer will begin the engineering of your metal building – or at least, the final phase of the engineering. The company will have done the preliminary engineering work when you asked for a quote. You should have, at this point, a preliminary schedule as to when you can expect delivery of your steel building components so that you can begin scheduling contractors and other things on your end.

After the design phase is completed, the manufacturer will supply you with the calculations you’ll need for the foundation design, which will be completed by an engineer or contractor that you hire. Even if you plan to erect the building yourself, most experts suggest that you hire a professional contractor to engineer and pour the foundation slab because it is essential to the safe construction of your steel building.

In the meantime, while you’re preparing the building site and laying the foundation, the manufacturer will be fabricating the components and packaging them for shipment. If you’ve timed things well, your steel building components will begin to arrive just about the time that your foundation is ready to be built upon.

You’ll need to have your contractor – or your group of friends – on hand for the delivery of your steel building components because you’ll be responsible for offloading the components and checking them for completeness and condition.

Once your components have been delivered, your contractor can begin putting up the framework and wall panels of the building. Because all the pieces are pre-drilled and pre-fitted, the actual assembly of the building will go very quickly. A crew that’s experienced at constructing steel buildings can often complete a single car garage over one or two days, for example. Compare that with the time it would take to erect a wooden garage addition to your home.

Best of all, the amount of time that it takes to put up steel buildings is not at all indicative of the amount of time they’ll last. Quonset buildings – the original portable metal buildings – that were put up in the 1930s are still standing.