An Early History of Pre-Engineered Steel Buildings and Their Uses

The change in metal and steel buildings has been significant in the past 200 years in terms of both cost-efficiency and technology.

Metal, as a natural resource for a building material, has become valuable due to its noninflammable characteristics. Use continued into the late 19th century when the very first buildings in the countryside of America were constructed with metal beams and framing. The introduction of the original pre-fabricated metal structures also came about around this time.

As the use of cars was on the brink of becoming widespread, at the dawn of the 20th century, steel and metal construction was mostly constrained to use for car garages. These were first produced by the Butler Manufacturing Co. In order to improve on the fire resistant elements of the garage and decrease the costs, total metal assembly soon replaced the original styles that incorporated a blend of metal and wood.

The Austin Company started construction using pre-engineering, as it is applied to steel framing, in the initial stages of the 20th century. The capacity to offer cheap metal driller buildings to oil ventures working in Oklahoma, starting in the 1920s, gave prominence to a corporation called Star Building.

Great attention to metal building construction began during the Second World War, when airplane hangars were fabricated utilizing a total metal construction for military use. Very recognizable buildings, then known as Quonset huts, also came into general use during this period. These structures required only the assistance of limited labor force and common tools to erect them and because of this, tens of thousands of these specific and distinct buildings were produced. The Quonset hut was singled out for being economical, but unfortunately was unattractive in appearance. The armed services acquired these arched rooftop huts for use as barracks and machine shops, and the public made use of them as agricultural buildings.

Production of pre-fabricated steel building systems in the mid-1940s featured the quick erection advantages and inexpensive prices instead of any aesthetics to market the product. The purchasers of these structures were less concerned with the external appearance than what would be sheltered inside the structure. A regular roof pitch of 4:12 was used with this next group in all-steel structure system approach, although its look was very ordinary. The doubtful durability and quality of these early pre-fabricated metal structures placed misgivings in consumers’ minds as these uninviting structures were left to corrode in America for a long period.

Fortunately, a new wave of construction that is very popular and widely accepted highlighted the noticeable advancements in steel structure systems and they are continuously gaining in favor for many uses.