I am trying to make my final selection on the steel building that will be my 30’x40′ welding and general goofin-off shop building. I quickly found out that buying a building is a lot like buying a car – the intial price doesn’t sound too bad until you start adding in things like doors and windows, which quickly add up. I am in an area which has a very high wildfire potential and since it will be used for welding and cutting, I decided to forego the cheaper wooden purlins and girts for all steel. (Not all buildings advertised as “steel” are actually all steel…) I also am in a national scenic area with a variety of rules and regulations regarding height (as low as possible), materials (no shiney or reflective surfaces), and color (dull, dark browns or greens).
After pricing out a number of all steel buildings, they all seem to come in around $8,000 or slightly more for 30’x40’x12high with a single, large, insulated rollup door and mandoors and windows. The local company I have been talking with is slightly higher, except that it is close enough it doesn’t have to be shipped and they also provide foundation drawings which they claim will pass the county planning office with no problems. The other companies only provide specifications and a the foundation has to be engineered locally. I have been told by a couple of cement contractors that the local engineering of the foundation typically runs $1200.
Anyway, to meet the local scenic restrictions, I have decided to side the building with 4’x8′ panels of either Hardi or Certainteed with a board and batton look. The building normally uses light gauge steel siding with girts at only 1′, 7′, and 12′ (I think). Since I am planning on the fiber cement panels, they have spec’d girts at 2′ intervals for a fairly significant add-on cost. Since the fiber cement panels are more rigid than the corregated steel, do they really need a 2′ spacing or could I safely go to something like a 32″ spacing or even more if I use 4’x10′ panels?
Additional question – since the exterior wall will be 12′ and the maximum panel size seems to be 4’X10′, there will be a horizontal seam that will not be covered by a batton. Does one normally flash such a seam or just use sealant. (I think I read on one fibercement site that they don’t recommend flashing, but can’t find it again so will ask.)
The local code says no corregated steel roofs, but I have talked the planning office into agreeing to let me use the steel if I paint it with a dark paint with sand in it so that it won’t have any glare that can be seen from any of the viewing areas. Just out of curiousity, has anyone every tried using fibercement panels on a roof? I assume the moisture permiability of fiber cement could be problem if the panels are not coated with something durable, not to mention the need for a really good sealant between the panels. My nightmare is to have a large burning limb come crashing down on the shop from a tall oak that is adjacent to where the shop will be. (Another scenic area rule – you can’t cut down any of the trees…) Anyway, I am not planning on fibercement panels for the roof, just curious.
Edited 3/12/2003 11:35:51 PM ET by CaseyR
Replies
I would be reluctant to stretch the span on FC. It's not all that stiff.
For your roof, you might look into some of the steel shingle panels. I'm currently writing a bid for a log home. The owner has spec'd a product called "Aston Wood-Metal shingle by 'Last-Time Metals.' I've had no personal experience with them, but the HO, a retired construction engineer, is convinced. They look nice in the brochures (of course).
Rep is near you: Custom-Bilt Metals, 7433 N Leadbetter Rd. Portland, Or. !-800-228-3143. Contact is Randy Jarvis.
This is not an endorsement because I've never dealt with them, but I'd appreciate feedback if you do check them and the product out.
Have fun...the Gorge is a nice area...cold and windy at times, but nice nonetheless.
Hi Casey, can't really help you too much; never installed FC panels before.
But as for the girts...you can get wooden girts that are fire resistant. 2x4s and 2x6s that are specially treated..they are reddish in color and so marked. These are often used in my area in local commercial work where a fire rating is specified. They cost slightly more than a regular 2x but not much.
Possibly using these would save you money. The fact that the girts are on the inside, they will only be exposed to welding sparks; not to exterior wild fires. Many of our local steel mill fabricated buildings were errected using steel with plain wood girts.... besides,it takes an awful lot of continued welding sparks to set a piece of wood on fire. Normally all it will do is smolder; not errupt into a blaze.
If weldingsparks are your main concern, you might want to consider installing heavy duty, see-thru, rubber matting. ( It can be found in most mail-order catalogues).
The rubber matts hang vertically in strip form; approx 15 inches wide per piece. The matting can be bought in a shaded color to protect unshielded eyes from the bright light of a welding torch. The matt shields the glare and keeps errant sparks in a confined area.
These matts hang to within inches off the floor, and can be easily parted by an indiviual for walking into and out of the welding zone. We always had an all steel table complete with grounding cable attached to the floor, located inside these type of welding rooms. The welding machine was positioned outside this area, with the cable running overhead in a cable tray. The cable would drop down from above; whereby we could attach our stinger to. Most of these rooms also had a home-made (steel pipe) clamping jig, which was installed vertically into the ground ( with anchor bolts thru the bottom flange into the crete). This clamping jig was very useful for holding objects. It consisited of various home-made vises that you could attach anything to. Thus, you had this and the table for welding various objects of various sizes. It was a pretty nice set-up. We also had an exhaust sysytem set up overhead as well to remove the welding flux gases from the area.
Anyway, sorry for rambling...just thought you should know about the nom-combustable wood studs...it may be just the right substitution you may be looking for.
LOL.
Davo
Edited 3/13/2003 3:15:51 AM ET by Davo
CR
They are called pre-engineered buildings for a reason. I would not self design any structural portion of the building. There have undoubtably been requests from the building manufacture for different spacings and/or their computer program could run this calculation off for you in a matter of minutes. I'd spend a few extra bucks there rather than self design. Unless you're a trained professional, never, do any self structural design, the liability downside is totally unforgiving.
The building manufacturer, unless this is a totally custom building, should have a suggested foundation design. Take the design to an architect or structural engineer in your area, have them review and stamp it and you should be good to go with the building department. The fee should be around $200 for the stamp.
You might check into using Cor-teen for the roofing. I don't know if it comes in corragated or not or what the cost is.
But it is special steel alloy that forms a "hard rust" that is a self sealing suface.
Bill -
There have been a number of discussions on Cor-ten (or Corten) steel over the last few years. Most of them, as I recall, were negative. They use Corten quite a bit in art work, and it seems to hold up fairly well in that application, even here in rainy Portland, but I have never cared much for the rusty look - spent too much of my life fighting the stuff...
Yeah, I will undoubtedly use some type of curtain around the welding area, although I am also going to have a cheap CAD plasma cutting setup and I don't know about curtains for that. Actually, I will probably end up rocking the interior, so the inside sparks probably wouldn't be all that much of a problem even with splintery 2x6s. But, I obsessively decided I was to build a STEEL building and dad-gum it, it's going to be a steel building... Getting a good rock job around the uprights might be a challenge, especially for someone like me who is definitely "rock challenged"...
This will definitely be an engineered building, complete with an extra fee for "engineered plans" - even though I am sure that they crank out a lot of 30'x40' buildings with the same specs, they charge for each one as if it was designed for scratch. However, the engineer at WebSteel indicated that they designed the main structure of the building without regard to girts or purlins, so the structure would be exactly the same whether it has three girts or six girts. I just have to pay a small fortune for each extra girt they provide.
Sure wish the going price around here was $200 to design a foundation, but I have yet to talk to anyone around here who tells me it is going to be much less than $1200, although I have only talked to concrete contractors and the steel building engineers and not anyone who actually designs foundations for a living.
The planning office originally suggested some type of steel shingle panel with a dark, rough finish on them but all of the information I have found about shingle panels is that must be applied to some type of roof paneling and since, as mentioned above, I have become obsessive about not having any wood in my STEEL building, I decided not to go that route.
Thanks all, I will let you know how it all comes out a few months from now.
I read somewhere on the net that the manufacturer will no longer sell Cor-ten sheet for roofing applications. IIRC, people were installing it contrary to the instructions, moisture was getting trapped on the underside, and it was rusting out way too early, much to the dismay of customers who thought they were buying rust proof or at least rust resistant roofing. Of course I no longer have the reference.
The fantasy I keep having is getting some heavy wall Cor-ten pipe, cutting it up and making barrel tiles out of it.