FAQs
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1) What services does BC Steel Buildings make available?

BC Steel Buildings offers a wide selection of both products and services, including construction, foundation, erecting and all engineering. Our products include over 200 rigid steel building systems, over 30 steel-framed and fabric-covered structures, and 5 Quonset variations (with and without straight walls and peaked roof). As well, BC Steel Buildings supplies any doors, anchor bolts, rebar, framing forms, windows, insulation, and wall liners as required by you.

2) Does BC Steel Buildings install other company’s buildings?

Yes. BC Steel Buildings has an admirable reputation in the industry. We are called upon by other building suppliers to install their buildings for their clients. Customers routinely return to us for additional buildings years later. And we are routinely called upon to repair “jobs gone wrong” by clients who had another company do their construction.

3) What engineering does BC Steel Buildings provide?

BC Steel Buildings offers the full array of engineering services, along with Schedule B’s needed for a Permit, including Geotechnical, Soil/foundation and Structural P.E.s

4) Does BC Steel Buildings carry inventory for immediate shipment?

Yes, BC Steel Buildings maintains an inventory of standard high-volume sizes: 30×40, 40×60, 60×80, 80×100 and 100×200 sized rigid frame buildings (other sizes are custom made). BC Steel also keeps most fabric style steel buildings in our warehouse in Langley for immediate shipment.

5) How can BC Steel Buildings help me to get a Permit?

If you are properly zoned for the intended purpose, BC Steel Buildings is responsible for meeting all Building Codes, Municipal requirements, and zoning/by-laws. Our engineers provide you with all needed Schedule B’s for each as well as conducting on-site inspections and reporting to the authority at the required stages of construction– all necessary for an Occupancy Permit.

6) What options does BC Steel Buildings have for foundations?

BC Steel Buildings can be erected on any of the following options: (a) in-ground concrete footings and piers, with or without a frost wall, or even an elevated pony wall, which are situated where the above-ground columns exist; (b) helical screw piles, alone or with a concrete grade beam; (c) thickened-edge slab; (d) 2x2x5-foot concrete blocks; (e) atop sea containers; (f) atop pre-existing concrete walls; (g) placed on an old concrete slab; (h) a grade beam; (i) pre-poured pilasters; and (j) ICF.

7) What is the height of the side wall of BC Steel Buildings?

BC Steel Building height options are numerous and are dictated by the height of the overhead doors, and whether you want a second floor mezzanine. Whatever height OH door you require, we need 3 feet above the door for hardware. For mezzanines, we need to consider height below and above and allow for 1 foot for rafters. Heights range from a low of 10 feet to as high as 50 feet.

8) How does BC Steel Buildings provide a mezzanine?

BC Steel Building can create a mezzanine which is (i) stand-alone (not connected to the steel building frame, or (ii) built into the outside steel structure by bolting the frame directly to it. In all cases, the second floor is a steel frame with 4 inches of concrete deck.

9) Can BC Steel Buildings be insulated?

Yes. BC Steel Buildings provides for various R values depending on your location, ranging from a low of R10 to a high of R80. You have choice of spray-foam, Styrofoam or fiberglass batt insulation.

10) What industries does BC Steel Buildings supply to?

If a BC Steel Building is required for Personal use, the typical applications are back yard garages, home-based workshops, auto repair, welding shops, general workshops, small barns, hay and feed storage, auto or boat storage, non-insulated cold storage uses, or insulated heated buildings. For Commercial, Industrial, Office uses, BC Steel Building applications are wide open, for any use and any size. They include airport hangars, commercial offices, recreational and sports centers, manufacturing or production facilities, warehousing, education, retail stores, and equipment storage.

11) Can I add length to any Steel Building in the future?

Width cannot be added to with the exception of placing a lean-to down the side. However, you can add length to any steel building later.

12) How fire resistant is a BC Steel Building?

Complete steel buildings can withstand any heat or any fire. Whether inside or outside the structure, the building cannot ignite, create smoke, melt, soften, or support a flame. Heat of fire may damage soft goods stored in and around a building. The paint on the building may char and burn off but the structure will remain intact.

13) How long from order to shipment for my BC Steel Building?

Most steel-trussed, fabric-covered buildings can be shipped within 1 week. A Quonset style steel building takes 2 to 4 weeks. A rigid framed steel building can take as long as 4 months.

14) Can I install partition walls inside?

Yes. Remember that you can do anything you want inside a BC Steel Building once completely erected. That includes partition walls, offices, washrooms, etc.

15) Can I paint a BC Steel Building?

Yes. However, most BC Steel Buildings already come painted with colours you chose for roof, walls, and trims

Recycled Steel is Sustainable and Green Too

Steel is the world’s most used metal. Also, it is the number one material used specifically in construction of buildings. Why? Because steel is uniquely positioned with characteristics that simply outlast any other building material. These include hardness, toughness, tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, fatigue strength, corrosion, plasticity, malleability, and creep. This is why it is used in everything from sea vessels to utensils to buildings.
It is not only amazingly versatile, with multiple thousands of end-uses, steel is incredibly, and perhaps surprisingly, green. In fact, your knife and fork could very well have come from the steel hull of an old battleship!

Imagine the pollution and overall effects on the environment resulting from original steel production:

  • Steel requires mined raw inputs. Underground, hard-rock mining occurs for both iron ore and coal, which tears apart mountains or digs down miles underground. The product must be refined to a purity level at high temperature and using tons of water. Then, it must be barged, or shipped, to customers. Air is polluted through the entire process, and there are mountains of slag that result from these processes.
  • To produce the actual steel, one needs a blast furnace that reaches 1,700 degrees C. This is a phenomenal use of heat energy.
  • Virgin steelmaking is one of the most carbon emission intensive industries in the world. As of 2020, steelmaking is estimated to be responsible for 9 per cent of all direct, global fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions.

Steel is one of a very few man-made materials that is 100% recyclable which is why steel scrap is rarely wasted or dumped in landfills. Because it is made to be so strong, steel lasts and lasts. Scrap steel is always recovered from any demolition and is separated, re-melted, and re-formed. The process uses less energy, no water, less air and zero added raw materials (coal, iron, etc.) than new steel. Recycled steel has precisely the same strength characteristics as virgin steel from which it came.

Great News:

  • For every ton of steel that is recycled, we save 1.5 tons of iron ore, half a ton of coal, 75% of the energy and 40% of the water needed for original steel production.
  • Air pollution is also reduced by 76% and water pollution by 80% when recycling steel.
  • Not to mention virgin steel produces one and one quarter tons of solid waste resulting from that process, which does not occur when recycling steel.

Recycling just makes economic and environmental sense.

Every piece of the steel used in BC Steel Buildings is 100% recycled.