Neighbors were confused when iron-workers and a crane showed up to erect a building on a corner of their residential subdivision.
Because the structure was framed entirely in steel, from the plates to the beams, joists, studs and rafters, neighbors assumed it would be a commercial building."They were all wondering what kind of business it was going to be," says Sharon Lang. "For a while we were kidding around, telling everybody it was going to be a funeral home."
Then they told the truth: The iron-workers were building a three-bedroom house for Mrs. Lang, her husband, Ken, and the Evansville, Ind., couple's two children.
When the brick and vinyl siding is up, the flooring down, the drywall hung and the trim secured, few will be able to tell that the 1,900-square-foot ranch house wasn't built with the same wooden framing as neighboring houses.
The only sign will be the deep window sills in the home's thick, heavily insulated walls, framed with 2-by-8 galvanized steel studs.
Mrs. Lang says those walls will mean lower utility bills, and the steel framing will provide a stronger, more durable and less flammable house. The house is engineered to withstand winds of up to 100 mph, and its design meets California's earthquake codes, the strictest in the nation.
"When that big earthquake hits in about 15 years, we'll be set," jokes Mrs. Lang.
The cost will be about $20,000 less than it would have been if the Langs had chosen the lowest bid for wood construction. "We got a basement with this for the same price it would cost us just to get the house framed in wood."
The Langs are paying $47,000 for the basic structure: the footings, basement, framing, subfloor and exterior sheeting. They'll install their own plumbing, wiring, heating and cooling, roofing, siding, drywall, lighting and trim.
Steel framing isn't always cheaper than wood, "but we're always competitive," says Tony Fuhrer, who, with sons Tom and Josh, owns Fuhrer Steel Frame Co., which is framing the Langs' house. The Fuhrers are pioneers of steel-framed residential construction; their company was formed in March 1995.
But steel framing is taking off across the nation. In a survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders, 35 percent of the responding contractors say they expect to try steel framing in the next five years. Steel-frame construction isn't new. It's been used for decades in commercial construction - churches, hospitals, schools, offices and factories.
Contractors have been offering steel-framed home construction as far back as 1927. It's only in recent years, spurred by dramatic price increases for lumber, that steel framing for houses has caught on.
Estimates for new houses using at least some steel framing have gone from 500 in the United States in 1992 to 55,000 last year, says Elizabeth Vago of the American Iron and Steel Institute, a nonprofit trade association in Washington, D.C.
In the Lake Barkley, Ky., resort area, where Fuhrer is building a 2,100-square-foot home for Bruce Irwin, "there's a lot of them," says Irwin, who cites some of the same reasons as Mrs. Lang for choosing steel framing for his colonial-style home.
"There's not termite problems or any possibility of the home being eaten up by an insect. And you're conserving trees."
To frame the Langs' house with wood "would have taken 200 trees," said Tony Fuhrer. Nearly 90 percent of the steel in the house is recycled, and all of it is recyclable.
The Fuhrers spent a year researching the industry before deciding to work with Tri-Steel Structures Inc., a Denton, Texas, company that has been designing and fabricating steel-framed houses since 1980.
Tri-Steel has about 1,000 plans for houses, ranging from 1,000 to more than 6,000 square feet. The company works with contractors in all 50 states and in 36 foreign countries, says company spokeswoman Theresa Stephens.