Steel Framing - An Innovative & Practical Way to Build Durable, Affordable Homes

Steel is a superior construction material. It has the highest strength to weight ratio of any building material. It doesn’t rot, warp, split, crack or creep. It doesn’t expand or contract with moisture content. It doesn’t burn or add fuel to the spread of a fire. Termites can’t eat it, and a historical graph of steel prices doesn’t look like the seismographic readout from a major earthquake.

Materials price comparison

Homes built with steel look better, perform better, provide a safer environment for inhabitants and contribute to saving trees. Steel framed homes have a much lower probability of sustaining foundation problems, earthquake and high wind damage. Builders and consumers will get stable material prices, straight walls, square corners, and less job site waste (2% for steel vs. 20% for lumber).

Steel is an environmentally friendly material. More steel is recycled in North America each year than aluminum, plastic and glass combined - with the industry’s annual recycling rate at about 64 percent. This is largely because all new steel products contain old steel products, or steel scrap, as it is known.

Each year steel recycling saves the energy equivalent to electrically power about one-fifth of the households in the United States for one year. For every ton of steel recycled, 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone are saved. Steel’s unique magnetic properties make it easily identifiable as a recyclable material. If a magnet sticks, then you know it’s steel.

"Now, steelmakers are upping the ante, touting redesigned products and investing millions of dollars in an ad blitz to convince homebuyers to demand metal. They have a surprising ally: The homebuilders’ national trade association, which is stepping up its efforts to stump for steel" The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2000.

The North American Steel Framing Alliance (NASFA) and its members, strengthened by close working relationships with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the NAHB Research Center, PATH, HUD, and others, have made huge strides toward fully enabling the residential construction market for steel. Product standards, prescriptive building methods, adoption by the codes, training the code officials, and estimating software have collectively leveled the playing field for steel. At the same time, innovative steel framing products and effective training programs have helped to make steel an economically viable option for today’s homebuilders and homebuyers.

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