As any proud blogger would do I posted my last blog entitled Pre-Fab Steel Buildings- They’ve Got the Look! about how versatile Prefabricated Steel Buildings are on my Facebook page, my LinkedIn page and a few other social media sites.  Later that day I get a text from one of my engineers that said, “I saw the blog…why call them prefabricated buildings…to be honest they are not even Pre-Engineered buildings anymore…they used to be 50 years ago….”  Should I mention that he is also my dear friend?  And, that was his one and only comment???  So much for his words of encouragement, right?

But truth be told his “criticism” led to a really interesting conversation that was very educational for me; as it usually is when talking to engineers in general and particularly my friend.  You see, he has been in the steel building industry for a long time and he remembers well the days when he use to work for the largest steel building manufacturer in the USA.  It was their practice and every other manufacturer’s practice at that time to have stockpiles of frames in their warehouses that were already engineered.  They typically inventoried frames for 30’wide, 40’wide, 50’wide…that were already engineered.  Each frame width was engineered with either a 5 psf snow load, or a 10 psf snow load, or a 15 psf snow load and on and on. He informed me that back in the day when someone ordered a building they just pulled the Pre-Engineered drawings for the frame with the appropriate snow load off the shelf along with the Pre-Engineered drawings for the secondary framing (e.g. Z and C shaped members), the framed openings, the component pieces, etc. until they had a complete building made up solely of Pre-Engineered pieces.  And that is how the term “Pre-Engineered Building” came to pass.

Merriam-Webster has the definition of Pre-Engineered as: constructed of or employing prefabricated modules <a Pre-Engineered Metal Building>.   Below is a drawing that shows some of the more major modules making up a Pre-Engineered building.

Although today’s metal buildings have almost all the same modules as the diagram above they are rarely considered “Pre-Engineered” anymore even though that is what the buildings are still called by the Sales Reps, General Contractors and End Users.  I asked my friend, “If they are not ‘Pre-Engineered’ then what are they?”  He replied, “Custom Engineered”.

He went on and on to explain that in today’s environment, the International Building Codes change so fast that you need technology to keep track of the codes.  It used to be that a State would change their Building Code once every 5 years or greater.  Now it seems that most States change their code or add changes to their code every year.  This in turn makes any Pre-Engineered drawings obsolete in less than a year.  So, the time spent pre-engineering all those different widths with all those different loads not a cost-effective model anymore.

Plus, in today’s environment buildings are no longer “stock buildings” because no matter what vertical is desired, buildings require specialization.  Short of the client saying to me, “I need a building for dry storage. Minimal insulation.  No accessories at all.  Standard door sizes in the most cost-effective location. No bells or whistles.” There will be some sort of specialization on that building.

Agricultural buildings use to be my most straight-forward vertical.  But, now Agricultural buildings have become very complex and require a lot of “out-of-the-box” designs.  Whether it is the need to direct the gases that manure produces out of the building, managing the destruction birds can cause to a building, or being able to do a clean scrape twice a day without having to work around the I-beams, etc. today’s Agricultural Buildings are complex and specialized.

Even though today’s Steel Buildings still use the same technology, concepts, connections, designs and techniques and yesterday’s Pre-Engineered Steel Buildings they are not to be confused with today’s Custom-Engineered Steel Buildings.

It was just yesterday that I was talking to the Owner of a large General Contracting Firm in Long Island, New York.  He emailed me some pictures of a large steel structure he had completed a year ago.  And he said, “I had to do this building out of Structural Steel because there were two attaching cranes in the building.  One crane was 22 tons and the other was 9 tons.”  This GC did not know that Pre-fabricated, steel buildings are so customized nowadays that they can be engineered to hold any crane no matter what the size is.  And this GC knows his industry!  He didn’t know that for one reason, my industry has changed so much in the last 10 years and my industry’s Representatives are not doing a good job of educating the Architects, Engineers, General Contractors and End Users.

Why isn’t my Industry doing a better job educated the public?  It’s simple, because they are still stuck selling a “Cancelled Building” pitch.  Click on my 1:32 video for an example of a “Cancelled Building” pitch.  If you have ever spoken with most Steel Building Companies, other than Solid Steel Buildings, you have probably heard a cancelled building pitch. https://youtu.be/PRTVzL8erWs

The point of this blog is to discuss whether there is really such a thing as a Pre-Engineered Building anymore.  And the short answer is “Yes” because there are still some dinosaur pre-fab shops out there.  But, should you buy one?  In almost every case the answer is, “No”.  Why?  Because the building process is a long road that is easily managed when you know what you are doing or you hire the right people who know what they are doing.  And rarely, very rarely, is a “Pre-Fab”, “Stock Building” going to work for your purposes or your Building Inspector’s.

A “Custom-Engineered” Steel Building will be engineered to satisfy your Building Inspector’s and your client’s needs- For the same price!  Steel is sold by the pound, not by the engineering.  So now when someone asks me what I do for a living my answer is no longer, “I sell Pre-Engineered Steel Buildings” because I sell Custom-Engineered Steel Buildings.  And the best part is my buildings are the exact same competitive price they always have been.  The only thing that changed was my understanding of the history of the phrase “Pre-Engineered”.  And guess what?  I like saying, “Custom Engineered” a lot better!  It has a nicer ring to it!