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How to Choose a Site Location for Your Steel Building
When you’re excited about starting construction on your new metal building, it’s easy to focus primarily on the building itself. The paint colors, the steel frame building materials, the facade, the unlimited potential. After all, Worldwide Steel offers so many options for bringing your construction dreams to life, and our 3D Online Building Designer makes it fun to see how changing the specs of your building could change the way it looks and functions.
But before you get too carried away with designing your dream metal building, you need to know where that building will be located. Whether you’re still looking for land or choosing a plot and building orientation on a property you already own, it’s crucial that you think carefully about your building location and build proper site preparation into your construction timeline.
From zoning requirements to deed restrictions, soil and water issues to utility access, underground obstructions to wind and sun exposure, metal building site selection can make or break your project.
When you work with Worldwide Steel, however, you aren’t left on your own when it comes to building site selection. Usually, do-it-yourselfers are solely responsible for complying with local building restrictions and all other site selection considerations. Our experts do the grunt work for you and with you. We check local building codes, wind and snow loads, zoning restrictions and anything else that could mean trouble for your new building.
But we can’t choose your building site for you (and you wouldn’t want that anyway). A site that will impact your satisfaction with your metal building for decades to come.
And because our building kits are truly DIY, they won’t be there once your kit is offloaded from the delivery truck. That means you’re responsible for how the building ultimately comes together on the property. And we figure you want to feel confident with every aspect of your building projects … including where you’re going to build your new structure.
Here are a few things we advise our customers to consider when they’re choosing and preparing a construction site for their new steel building:
- Survey the site carefully. Make sure you’re aware of any permits you’ll need to build a commercial or residential building, where any underground utilities may be, the exact boundaries of the property, and the grade.
- Consider the total space you have and/or need. Your metal building will need more room than just its square footage. Any access, walking, parking, growing or green space also needs to be accounted for.
- Look at the grade. Is your building site flat? Will water run away from the building? If so, will it negatively affect anything on the property around it?
- Clear and level. You will likely need to regrade the building site, level the property or clear trees and brush.
- Ensure your documents are in order. Confirm the accuracy of permits, property deeds and building plans you’ll need to legally begin construction.
- Think about your climate. Unique frost lines, soil types, average weather conditions and location may influence the site selection and building design choices you make.
- Face the right way. Sun exposure can seriously impact the efficiency of steel buildings.
- Know which utilities you’ll need and how you’ll access them. If there are already utility lines running under the property, you’ll need to avoid them during construction. If there aren’t, how easy will it be to get them? If you aren’t able to tap into a city’s water supply, you’ll need to plan for a well and a septic system.
- Confirm the site’s accessibility. You’ll need clearance for construction, space for the delivery truck and setback according to local laws at the very least.
- Have your soil tested. If it hasn’t been mapped and you haven’t built on the property before, it can be helpful to get a soil test performed. If your soil is too loose, too hard, or contains too much clay, it can affect the functionality of your building. A professional will likely be able to mitigate any issues, but it is important to know about them so they can be dealt with.
We’re confident you’ll love your custom-built metal building. But we’ve been in business long enough to know that customers who put as much thought into site selection as the selection of their prefab steel buildings are the happiest with their decisions for years into the future.
Want to chat about site selection (or our 50-year structural warranty, or pricing on our steel building kits, or anything else) for your steel building? So do we! Give our building experts a call at (800) 825-0316.