US Steel Building Comments

rims421 · Jul 13, 2004

I have someone local that is selling a US Steel Building 30x36x14 S model. It is a steel quonset type building.
He purchased it new about 3 years ago and the town he is in will not let him erect it. He is selling it for $3500. It seems like a great deal. The unit does not include the endwalls. I originally wanted to purchase a clear span steel truss building but the price's were just to high. Anyone have any experiance with this type of building? One downside I have found is that the unit requires a footing the entire length verses using piers on a truss building. More excavating, concrete, forms etc.
Do you guy's think it is a good deal?
My wife is not thrilled with the way it looks and is forcing me to put it way in the back so she will not have to look at it. That will increase the cost of running my water and electrical.
Any comments would be apreciated.

Dave___in___CT · Jul 13, 2004

Hi...

Will Zoning allow it where you are ?

Might wanna' price the concrete work too... could be a few thousand... ?

Can you assemble it ?

Dave...

rims421 · Jul 13, 2004

No problem with zoning in my town.
I estimated the concrete around $4000 for the footings and the slab. I plan on doing the assembly myself.

DiskDoctr · Jul 13, 2004

Rims421,

If you need to fasten your uprights to the concrete, do yourself a favor and don't try to preform in the anchors. This requires very accurate measurements and such.

When we put up our 40x60x16 clearspan last year, we made that mistake for the main uprights. Lots of challenges.

For the additional uprights, we used a large (7/8") Bosch impact drill and drilled the holes into the concrete and used steel "earthquake anchor bolts."

You know the type. Drill the holes, pound them in all but an inch or so, put your plate on them, and then your washer and nut and tighten. It is critical you use the right size drill bit. Best idea is to just buy a bit when you buy the anchors. Fastenal is a good source for these.

Instead of a full length footer, we used 24" Sonatubes beneath each upright (I don't think you have uprights, so you may just want to space 12" ones along the length) from 24" to 64" deep. We had filled a slope and wanted to reach virgin soil and below frost line. We then poured the floor over top of the pillars.

We poured the pillars separately before the floor and had to be very careful using a laser transit for height. If doing it again, I'd fill the pillars and pour the floor at the same time.

Hire a concrete finisher, expect 2 days with the size of your floor. Bring buddies to help. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The building you are looking at doesn't have straight sides, curved, right? When we were looking at options, we chose to go with a straight walled side, as we wanted to have shelves, pegboard, etc and you can't do that on a curved wall.

I figured for our purposes, we'd end up building walls inside the structure for shelves and such, which really was a big expense to "duplicate" walls. With straight walls, you can attach directly to the uprights.

Also, depending upon your usage plans, you could lose space, since a tall item cannot be close to the wall, it has to be moved away from wall towards center to have height clearance.

The type you mention are great for tractor shelters, though. And lots of other things. It sort of depends what you want to do with it.

If it has been stored a while, be sure to check carefully, as they (any steel building) are notorious for problems when stored. They can corrode easily and even the manuals give specific cautions for long term storage (several months or more)

When assembling, see if you can find (borrow or rent) a rolling platform, preferably height adjustable. It will make your life so much easier than ladders or scaffolds.

If installing electricity, don't forget that you have to have an extra ground lug in your breaker box attached to the steel building. At least we did- the inspector had to come back after I did it /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Also, you can search on www.ebay.com for "steel building" and get comparison prices. Many of the major distributors use this to reach customers. Note: "closeout, overstocked, somebody didn't pick it up, etc" is just a game. Still some good prices, but don't be fooled...

Hope this helps.

-JC