Standard Features
Don’t let other companies Nickel and Dime you on Quality
Standard features on our buildings are often offered as “options” with other companies. They figure what you don’t know won’t hurt you. That isn’t the case. Besides, price is all that matters, right? The price may look good up front, but consider the heating and AC bill you will incur because the building you bought doesn’t have Eave Closures. Who’s going to tell you what you are missing? With little or no knowledge of the steel building industry, they figure you don’t know what questions to ask anyway.
We believe without the features listed below, which are standard on all our buildings, it significantly compromises the quality of your steel building project.
Sheeting - Our steel buildings come standard with 26 gauge, 80-90 thousand pound tinsel strength. You will find that a lot of companies carry R Panel sheeting. The problem with R Panel as you can see in the diagram below, is that when you run a screw into the two sheets where they overlap, the screw will hit an unsupported lip and push it down rather than puncturing it and drawing it up tight. With R Panel you are much more likely to have leaks. Our buildings come standard with PBR Paneling for roof and walls. This allows for a much tighter seal virtually eliminating leaks.
Eave and Base Closures – are designed to fit the exact corrugation of the sheeting you have selected. It is installed at the top and bottom of the wall sheeting. Eave and Base Closure is used to reduce noise, reduce wind draft, keep rodents out, and save you money on heating and AC.
Cover Trim – Most companies don’t provide this as a standard feature. Without cover trim, the red iron framed openings show around rollup doors and have an unfinished appearance.
Standard Base Angle – The Standard Base Angle option requires a notched concrete slab, and is included as a standard option in the base building price. There are several different options to choose from, some of which may affect the price. Click Here for more examples.
Paint – Our standard paint is a siliconized polyester. Our premium paint is a Kynar 500. We provide a 25-year limited paint warranty for all colors except for Scarlet Red and Crimson Red. Many companies offer only a 5 or 10 year paint warranty.
Shipping – We ship out of 18 plants coast to coast which saves you money on shipping costs. All parts are bar coded at the plant and all buildings are video taped at the time of loading to insure every piece shows up at the job site. As you see in the picture below, all trim pieces are shipped inside of wax coated boxes to prevent any damage to parts while loading and unloading. Standard Steel Buildings gives you extra time, 5 days, to inventory your building to insure you have received every nut and bolt.
Project Coordinator – A Project Coordinator is a service we provide free of charge to all of our customers. Your project coordinator will be the person that will work with you and be your main point of contact from start to finish. You will find that your project coordinator is invaluable throughout the entire process. It’s comforting to know that you will have an expert to advise you on the least expensive ways to finish your project. Our Project Coordinators will make sure you end up with a quality product you can be proud of.
Blueprints – Standard Steel Buildings provides 6 sets of engineered stamped blueprints. All blueprints are engineered to meet your local city, county, and state building codes regarding snow, wind, seismic and exposure ratings. Blueprints include anchor bolt plans and concrete reactions.
Collateral Load – Most companies do not include a collateral load as a standard feature. As a matter of fact, many companies never mention collateral load in the initial buying process. We include a 3 pound per square foot Collateral Load as a standard feature in all of our Churches, Schools, and Government buildings. Other building uses may or may not require a Collateral Load, so it is important to speak with your sales rep or project coordinator about this. Click Here for more on Collateral Load.
Long Life Screws – Standard Steel Buildings provides the “Long Life Screw” as a standard feature on all our buildings. Long life screws can greatly extend the life of your building and help to eliminate many potential maintenance problems. Long life screws have a zinc plated carbon steel shank with a self-drilling point and a cast zinc alloy hex head. The fastener also has an EPDM sealing washer to assure a waterproof seal.
Gauge and Tinsel Strength – Gauge refers to the thickness of the metal; the lower the number, the thicker the metal. We use either a 24 or 26 gauge steel for our sheeting, depending on location or roofing selection. Many companies use a 26 gauge steel sheeting, which is the industry standard, and they may tell you they carry the heaviest gauge sheeting. However, gauge of the material is not what’s important. The tinsel strength of the material is what you want to pay close attention to. Tinsel strength is the hardness and density of the metal. Our sheeting has a tinsel strength of 80-90 thousand pounds per square inch. You will find that many companies use a 40-50 thousand pound tinsel strength in order to lower the cost of manufacturing the building. The lower the tinsel strength of the sheeting, the softer and more susceptible to damage it becomes.
Pre-Welded Clips – Many steel building companies use bolt on clips while others require the clips to be welded on the jobsite. With approximately 4 bolts per clip, the bolted method requires a great deal of labor. The welded method requires a certified welder to be on-site at the time of erection. Both of these processes leave a large chance for human error. A standard feature on all Standard Steel Buildings, are pre-welded clips. Pre-welded clips are designed, engineered, and welded at the manufacturing plant prior to shipment. This method leaves virtually no chance for human error and greatly speeds up the erection process.
Sculptured Eave Trim – You will find that many companies use a simple or “block” trim as a standard feature. Standard Steel Buildings provides sculptured eave trim as a standard feature on all of our steel buildings. Sculptured eave trim gives your building a more finished look and greater curb appeal.
PERMIT VS. PRODUCTION
There are two ways to order a building. You can order a building for production, or you can order a building for permit. After receiving your deposit, many companies place the building straight into production. That can be a costly mistake. If you have a building in production before obtaining your permits from the city, they could come back and tell you that you have an easement or setback on the property, or the building is too high, too wide, too long, or the pitch is too high. At Standard Steel Buildings, we wait to hear that you have obtained a building permit before we order the building into production. By ordering the building in this manner, it allows us to make changes or modifications if needed protecting you from a potentially devastating loss.
COMPONENTS
KNOCKDOWN VS. PRE-ASSEMBLED DOORS & WINDOWS - Components are items such as doors, windows, insulation, gutters and downspouts, vents, skylights, etc. Rather than educating you on the many options to choose from, other companies may only talk to you about the “size” of the components. For example, would you like a price on a 3070 man door or a 4x4 window? Do you really know what you’re getting? Take the door for example. Is the door insulated or non-insulated? What color is it, white or bronze? Does it have an automatic closure, a kick plate, a latch guard, panic hardware, or a framed opening? Are the doors keyed alike? Which way does the door open? Is it pre-assembled or a knockdown door? Most companies carry knockdown components. Knockdown components come in a box with a bunch of parts that have to be assembled on site. We only carry top quality pre-assembled components. Pre-assembled components are delivered equipped with the options you have selected, and can be installed in minutes. When using pre-assembled components, you eliminate human error and possible damage to the component that can be caused on the jobsite, saving you time and money. Our Project Coordinators take the time to educate you on all the available options and allow you to “choose” what best fits your needs.
Rollup Doors – Although there are many different types of doors to choose from, Standard Steel Buildings carries a full line of commercial grade rollup doors. Our Commercial grade doors are for light-duty or heavy duty applications allowing for frequent usage from warehouses, manufacturing plants, machine shops, auto body shops, to a garage in your back yard. The 16-gauge, 12” drums allow for easy retraction. These doors are low-maintenance, seal flush, and can be well insulated, which is what every owner wants in a quality door.
Insulation – Most steel building companies carry vinyl backed insulation similar to that of garbage bag material. It’s very thin, flimsy, easy to dry out, easy to tear, and once torn usually continues to tear down the seam (See Picture Below). Steel building companies know that customers don’t know to ask about the backing and only the R-value and thickness, so they use this product in an attempt to make more money. Standard Steel Buildings uses a Polypropylene backing on all our insulation as a standard feature. The Polypropylene backing we use is similar to duct tape, having fiber strips that run back and forth approximately every ¼ inch. This process makes the backing much thicker, heavy duty, not easy to dry out, very difficult to tear, and if torn usually stops after hitting one of the fiber strips. Another feature of the backing we use is a metalized polyester which looks similar to foil. It provides significant advantages as a radiant barrier and a water vapor transfer rate 50 times greater than plain vinyl insulation. Our backing also comes in two colors; gloss white and matte black. We carry insulation packages from a 2 inch vapor barrier to an R-40 system.
