Practical Steel Buildings

Our church is in the process of attempting to purchase some property from a different church that has closed down. The new property has two large steel buildings on it, and if we can figure out how to configure them, we will have both a church building and a school building. Of course, all of that is contingent upon our getting the property first.

I must admit the buildings are ugly; however, I have seen first-hand what can be done with prefab steel buildings. The church we attended before we moved down here had been meeting in a school. A new highway was being put in across town, and an automotive parts store was directly in the highway's path. It was auctioned off with the understanding that the purchaser would move the building.

The winning bid happened to come from a man in our church, who then turned around and donated the building to the church. With the help of some missions teams, our men took down the building, moved the pieces to our 24 acre property, drew up and had approved new plans, and put the building back together.

If you were to see the church today, you would not know that the church was a steel building - unless you looked at the back half. The front half is stuccoed outside, and the inside has sheet rock and all the finishing touches any stick-built building would have. It's beautiful. The back half is used as a recreation/fellowship area; therefore, there was no need to make it "spiffy." I have pictures of the completed building, and if I can get my scanner to work again, I'll share them with you shortly.

Steel buildings are not only more affordable as large buildings but are also practical and cost-effective in smaller sizes. Both our old house and our current house had a small steel storage shed on the property when we purchased it. Ironically, both buildings were old and soon fell down, meaning we had to replace them. While we replaced them with wooden structures, it would have cost us less to replace the old sheds with new steel sheds.

Steel buildings are available for many different uses. Have horses? You might want a metal horse barn. I've seen people with RVs and other large vehicles store them in a portable garage. Steel buildings can also be used as airplane hangars, workshops, and carports.

Do you have a steel building on your property? What do you like or not like about it?