Three advantages to using structural steel

Posted on: 27 August 2021

Share  

Steel is an essential component for many building projects, but perhaps you haven't truly appreciated all the ways that steel can improve your building. The strength of steel is well-known, but do you know how you can use that strength to the best advantage? Here are three ways that structural steel could help to enhance your building work and keep the project on track.

1. Get the design that you want

Whether you are building a family home or a shopping centre, the design is central to the project success. Whatever design you choose must match the building's purpose. A sense of space can enhance any design but that isn't always easy to achieve, especially on a large scale. If you want to maximize your floor space, you probably want a design as open-plan as possible. Many materials would require pillars and other structural supports to carry the weight of the building across a large open space. Structural steel can often carry that weight without the need for columns taking up valuable room. Whether you want the structural steel to be flat or curved, it can carry more weight than other building materials.

2. Get the reliability you need

There are some building materials where you are never sure quite what you are going to get. Quality can be a particular problem when you are working with materials created or finished on your building site. With structural steel, you can have confidence that the steel was manufactured in controlled conditions and meets strict quality standards. With modern computer-controlled production methods, there is complete repeatability, and every piece of structural steel will be cut identically to every other piece, so everything will fit together perfectly once it reaches your site.

3. The cost you desire

Something that not everyone appreciates about structural steel is that it reduces costs in multiple ways. Steel is not an expensive building material, yet steel can cut out the need for many other items. Steel is also lightweight, so transportation costs are often far lower than with other materials. Producing the steel off-site, and having it arrive ready for use, cuts down the amount of time that your team need to be on-site, further driving down the costs of the project. These cost savings can add up to a significantly reduced budget, allowing you to keep firm control of project finances and even spend extra on some of the more decorative elements of the building.