What Everybody Ought to Know About Metal Building Homes

The Rise of Metal Building Homes

For the longest period, humanity’s preferred choices when it came to building houses were wood, bricks, soil, glass and steel later on, and more recently, metal. Actually, more recently refers solely to residential buildings, as human kind has been using metal for other types of buildings for quite a while now, since just after the second World War. Seeing as more and more people are choosing this material and frame for their homes, here are all the things everybody ought to know about metal building homes.

        

Types of residential steel constructions

There are three different methods of constructing a metal home.

• The first type centers on framing the entire structure out of steel studs. It greatly resembles classic wood-frame constructions. The difference is that they use engineered steel studs instead of the traditional wood.
• The second type requires the use of structural ‘I’ beams. Homes that are framed using these particular beams usually tend to adopt a more modern architecture style and design.
• The third type uses a metal building system which acts as the house’s superstructure. This metallic building system turns into the home’s shell. The interior will be finished in the same way a traditional wooden house would be. The house’s exterior walls may very well be metallic panels if the owner desires it so, but they can also be made of brick, glass, stone or anything else.

What advantages do metallic building houses have?

As far as benefits go, metallic homes have very little cons and a lot of pros. Here are some of them.

• They have an engineered structure – this means an engineer was involved in their design. If that is the case, then the house in itself will meet and anticipate a design load, as opposed to regular wood homes which very much depend on their framer’s level of expertise.
• They can be given multiple purposes at the same time – because of this particular feature metallic homes come with, they have been dubbed ‘barndominiums’. This means they can double as a house and barn. Of course, barn doesn’t have to mean a literal barn. It can also mean working space. The idea behind this is to combine the residential and utility areas so that overall costs of building, living in, and maintaining are significantly lower.

• They can be built very quickly -The reason is that the entire house is engineered and fabricated at the manufacturer’s site. They then wrap everything up in what’s called a ‘kit’ and ship it to you. All you need to do is assemble it, and that will take almost no time.
• Metal houses don’t have any load bearing walls – There are no walls inside the house that support the weight of other walls or the roof, and no columns either. This means you can make all the changes in design you want, even last minute ones. The structural integrity of your house will not be altered whatsoever. In the same way, you can consider future remodeling as a truly viable and easy option. Anytime you feel like rearranging the space or dividing it differently, you can do that with much ease.
  This unique feature will come in handy when your family gets bigger by, for example, having one or more children. In case your house was designed with a spacious open living room, you can easily remodel it and make at least one extra room out of it for the children.
• The structure is far less likely to collapse – in case of a natural disaster, such as an earthquake or a hurricane, a metal house will hold together far better than a traditional one. Firstly, because it’s made of metal and secondly because the bolts that were used to tie everything together are made of metal as well. Classic houses use bolts as connections, which provide far less sustainability.
• Acclimatization will be extremely easy and cheap – metal homes will stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. You have far more options for insulating a metal house than for a wooden or brick one. You can also use or attach lightly colored metal panels in the summertime. These will literally deflect the sun, keeping the house cool. This means almost no AC use and a much lower electricity bill.
• The material is extremely durable – this criterion is pretty self-explanatory, seeing as we are discussing metal. It will not rot nor rust if coated with special primers.
• It’s termite resistant – another thing you will never have to worry about are termites, which are the main enemy when it comes to wooden homes.
• A metal building home is green – the material, metal, is very environmentally friendly. Most manufacturers even use recycled steel, so the structure itself can be as green as possible. You are also protecting the forests by not using any wood and the environment itself by using less electricity.

Metal building home kits – where to get them and can you DIY?

As stated above, metal houses are designed and engineered by the manufacturer at their site. They then deliver the house to you in the form of steel building kits. As far as purchasing goes, you can buy them anywhere. One tip here is to do some research online and find out which are the best manufacturers in your county or state. They all have websites and phone numbers which you can use to find out all the precise information you need for your house.

You can also buy them from big retailers, such as Amazon or even on a budget.

As far as doing it yourself goes, the answer is yes, you can definitely put the house kit together yourself. Although, if you are a first-time builder or have no experience with houses or construction work at all, it’s best if you call in a specialized team. Also, you need to take into consideration all aspects of building a house, not just the house itself. There is also the foundation, the piping, the watering system, the toilets, the heating system, and everything in between. It will take more time than you think it will if you decide to DIY. However, there is one piece of advice all metal home builders have for you – don’t be scared!

Metallic homes were designed to be easy to build, live in, and maintain. They are one of the greatest inventions of our times and, hopefully, more and more people will get on board this trend in the future. This could, truly, be part of the solution for our environmental problems.

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