Trends Point to Allure of Steel Homes
“The housing industry needs a good environmental model,” maintains John Picard, who nominated his new recycled steel house.
At first glance his campaign seems futile. Who wants a steel house? Last year, according to the National Assn. of Homebuilders, its members built close to a million homes in the United States and 95% were wood framed. But a closer look reveals a new trend: Not only are home builders, developers and consumers starting to consider recycled steel, the steel industry itself is just waking up to the potential in all those scrap metal yards.
The NAHB’s Maryland research center, which tests building materials and builds prototype homes, is preparing to build a house concentrating on recycled resources. “We’re going to look at everything that goes into the house right down to the nails,” says Lee Fisher, senior industrial engineer. “If we can find a product that is recycled we will use it and we hope to use a lot of recycled steel.”
Why the departure from tradition?
“Several things are happening,” he says. “Builders are complaining about paying huge dumping fees for end-trim off lumber, scrap and waste shingles. Manufacturers are starting to realize some of these things don’t have to be thrown away; they can be recycled. Homeowners are getting very conscious about the environment and their use of resources. There’s a limited supply of timber, the price is rising, and environmentalists are raising hell about clear-cutting.”
In Washington, D.C., the American Iron and Steel Institute, the industry’s trade association, has just launched a campaign to promote light gauge steel for housing.
“It’s a new emphasis,” said staffer Rick Haws. “We haven’t been effective in educating the public about the recyclability of steel. Now we are trying to correct that deficiency.”
The AISA is proposing recycled steel for the framing, the roofing, the doors and siding of houses, he said. “Most people don’t realize that steel is the most recycled of all recycled materials.”
Their efforts are starting to pay off, he said. “Steel is now being perceived as being environmentally friendly and a cost-effective alternative to wood. It’s already taken off in Japan.”
At Angeles Metal Systems in Los Angeles, which supplied the steel framing components for Picard’s house, Terry Dinius thinks steel houses are the wave of the future, citing cost effectiveness plus environmental awareness. He enumerated:
“Insurance goes down, you can get the highest seismic-force rating for earthquakes--and in California that’s a real big selling point--it’s virtually fireproof, and you don’t have to worry about termites.”
Although his company has concentrated on the commercial market and a few large estate houses, he said, their new affiliate, California Building Systems, will focus on middle-class tract housing.
“Believe me,” Dinius predicts, “by the year 2000 you’ll see steel framing everywhere.”
Most important, despite its cold sound, a steel house does not have to look like a Quonset hut.
Although Picard chose to finish his house in galvanized sheet steel, to make an ecological statement, a steel-framed house can be finished in brick or stucco or any other veneer. “It can look like anything you want it to,” emphasized Haws.
