Prefabricated buildings have been around for a while. In fact, people could order prefabricated houses from the Sears Catalog in the early 1900s. Nowadays, prefabricated buildings, including metal buildings, are more popular for businesses than homes. Let’s look at what metal building construction is and how it works for commercial building projects.
Key Takeaways
This post covers the following topics:
- How metal building construction works
- The benefits of steel building construction
- Industries that use metal building construction
- Whether you can expand a metal building
- The amount of maintenance metal buildings require
- The type of contractor you should partner with
- Whether Calahan Construction works on metal construction projects
How Does Metal Building Construction Work?
The metal or steel building construction process starts with pre-cut and pre-punched materials. The manufacturer prefabricates these materials to meet your project’s metal building specifications. They then ship the prefab building materials to your construction site, where your contractor puts them together.
Manufacturers and contractors typically use steel for these projects because manufacturers can fabricate it easily and it’s extremely durable.
Benefits of Steel Building Construction
Steel or metal building construction services offer a range of benefits, including:
- Reduced construction costs: The costs to build a metal building from prefab parts are much lower than the costs to construct a building from the ground up. That’s because a metal building’s steel structure already exists and just needs to be put together like a puzzle.
- Shorter construction timelines: Prefab steel building kits need little to no foundation preparation. This makes their construction timelines much shorter than those for non-prefab buildings. Also, the construction process itself is short because it only involves putting the prefab steel framing together.
- Increased eco-friendliness: Metal building construction kits are often made with repurposed steel, and their frames are recyclable. These qualities mean your metal building creates less waste. Also, its materials can be reused after your building reaches the end of its lifespan.
- Improve durability: Metal buildings can endure a lot and come out the other side just fine. They can handle heavy snowfall, severe storms, and other intense weather conditions while still lasting for decades.
What Industries Use Metal Building Construction?
The great thing about pre-engineered metal buildings is that they’re incredibly versatile. Originally used for storage and industrial facilities, metal buildings house all sorts of businesses nowadays, including offices and retail stores. Your building manufacturer can engineer the steel framing to fit your construction project and adjust the frames to fit all your business needs.
Considering metal building construction? Learn more about Calahan Construction’s services today.
Can You Expand a Metal Building?
Yes. A few years after you complete your metal building construction, you may find that your business has outgrown the building’s square footage. If you run a warehouse, your business may grow to the point where you have more products than space to store them. Fortunately, metal buildings easily expand with the removal of one or more side walls, depending on how much larger you want your facility to be.
Do Metal Buildings Require Lots of Maintenance?
No, they don’t. Once the metal building process is complete, you don’t have to worry about taking care of the steel framing. After all, steel structures are extremely durable and they don’t weather. You don’t have to check for rot and insect infestations like you would with a wood frame building, and you can quickly build your metal building and start using it instantly without investing in maintenance.
What Type of Contractor Should You Partner With for a Metal Construction Project?
When looking for a contractor to create your metal building, make sure you talk to commercial building contractors. Residential contractors won’t be able to meet your needs because they work with completely different types of building construction materials and methods. Also, ask your commercial contractor if they’ve built a pre-engineered metal building before. A contractor who has completed metal building construction before is more likely to get the job done right than a first timer.
The type of contractor you choose for this project matters because the more experienced your contractor is with metal building construction, the more efficiently your project will be completed. An experienced contractor knows how to use the heavy equipment required to put your building’s steel framing in place, so you can start using your new facility as soon as possible.
Does Calahan Construction Perform Metal Building Construction?
Yes, we do. We’ve worked with metal buildings many times. We know how to use a pre-engineered steel frame to create the best commercial space for your business. When we take on your project, we’ll help you customize your metal building order so it’s more than just a set of metal boxes. Today’s metal building kits offer a wide variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and roof panels, and we can help you choose the right options for your business. We can turn pre-engineered steel building parts into a facility that works for your business’s specific operations.
Create Your New Building With Us
At Calahan, we excel at new construction services. We handle pre-engineered metal building construction, but we do so much more than that. We also provide tilt-up and conventional ground-up construction services, and we work with a range of construction methods to make sure businesses in the Denver area have the buildings they need.
If you’re planning a new construction project for your business, reach out to Calahan Construction today. Our architects, project managers, and engineers have the skills and experience required to customize a building you can effectively run your business in. We’re ready to create a new building whenever you need us.