Demonstration House Proves A Good Promotion
It took a year of careful planning in preparation, and several months of work at the building site to bring Northern California's light gage residential steel framed demonstration house to completion. In a way, though, it will never really be completed. It's serving its purpose as an industry showpiece without roof or wall coverings, nor such refinements as plumbing and electrical services. It attracts the attention of professionals and ordinary citizens alike for what it is: an example of how steel is used to replace conventional wood framing in home construction.
A cooperative committee comprised of both labor and management representatives sponsored the project. Participating organizations included the Northern California Drywall Contractors Association as well as the carpenter and lather unions.
The Drywall Information Trust Fund, technical arm of the drywall contractors' association, supervised construction and conducts seminars at the house for interested professionals. The 2,000-square-foot, two-story structure stands on the parking lot at the Drywall/Lathing Apprenticeship Training Center in Hayward, Calif. This is the headquarters for the DITF training program, which includes four other Northern California centers scattered from Sacramento to Fresno. Technical director of the DITF is Jason Fell, who spearheaded the demonstration home. He received a lot of skilled assistance from lathing contractor Joe Puccio, who built and occupied his own steel framed residence in Fremont nearly a decade ago.
"We're doing something a little different than the usual show house," Fell explained. "There were no opening ceremonies and no printed literature was prepared to hand out. Instead, we're conducting seminars.
"A couple of AIA chapters have been invited for a catered lunch and house inspection. We're doing the same thing with people from the Construction Specifications Institute. Class groups from a couple of colleges have also visited the house," he said. "When we invite building inspectors, we suggest they bring their red tags along to indicate anything they find that's not up to code. They have done so, and we have fixed what's wrong."
At the seminars, Fell explains the advantages of light gage steel framing in residences. He points out that costs are competitive with wood, and that they don't bounce around like a yo-yo from month to month. Builders can obtain firm framing bids, knowing that the steel price quoted today won't have to be adjusted three months later when ground is broken. Environmentalists like the idea of living in a house that doesn't owe its existence to trees harvested from our diminishing forests. And everyone appreciates steel's dimensional stability. It doesn't warp, swell, or shrink with changing temperatures and humidity. Termites find nothing to chew on, and insurance companies appreciate the fire-safe construction.
However, Fell does not give his audiences a snow job. He doesn't want them to encounter hidden pitfalls if they decide to try residential steel framing. For example, builders can't simply hand a contractor a set of plans drawn for wood and expect them to convert it to steel. Steel structures must be engineered, and shear considerations and thermal values are different from wood.
One of the most frequently asked questions by visitors to the house concerns insulating characteristics of steel construction. People seem to regard steel as a "cold" material, at least when compared to wood. Fell responds to thermal insulation inquiries by explaining differences between exterior wall coverings on the demonstration house. One elevation has traditional stucco, and another is finished in EIFS. The three-coat conventional stucco may require 6-inch studs in order to provide additional insulation as a means of meeting heat transmission standards. Exterior insulation and finish systems, on the other hand, customarily incorporate a layer of foam board which helps meet insulation requirements.
Another question he has fielded on several occasions relates to possible damage from electrolysis where steel members meet. He points out that this has never been a problem in installations going back 25 or 30 years. The same thing applies to rusting, which has not been a problem with galvanized steel.
So far no steel framed houses have been built as a direct result of the demonstration project, however this is of no concern to the sponsors. They're confident that steel will eventually become popular in house construction, and want to hasten that acceptance. The interest generated to date has fully justified their faith in the project. Already, there are steel frame homes going up in the area simply because of growing interest in steel caused by rising lumber prices.
Eventually the demonstration house will probably be dismantled and recycled. In all probability it will be replaced by another, more modest house. The next will be less expensive due to the experience gained on this one, and it will be one story instead of two. If everything goes according to expectations, there will be a series of these demonstration structures at the training center.
Realizing that it's impossible to use wood framing standards for steel, Jason Fell decided to use an engineer experienced in residential steel framing to ensure acceptance by the building department. Don Kan of SKW Engineering, who has been designing in light gage steel for 15 years, was selected for the job. Plans and specifications were approved without difficulty. And to make sure it wasn't a fluke, Fell ran the plans past several other building departments in the region. All of them indicated that they would issue a permit for the house in their jurisdictions.
Steel was used for the entire framing system, including roof trusses and floor joists. Sponsors feel that because of the complexity of truss construction, the units might lend themselves to prefabrication. That happened in the lumber industry, especially on tract projects. From what he's seen of panelization jobs, Fell's not too keen on experimenting with wall prefabrication. Footings and foundations customarily are not precision made, as they must be if they are to support prefabricated panels. For example, the parking lot which served as the project building site was not level. Because of the terrain's pitch, a ledger system was devised to make sure that the frame would be true and plumb.
Contractor support for the residential steel framing concept has been somewhat spotty. Those bidding on commercial work are the most familiar with steel, but not very interested in getting into the housing market. Despite their experience, none of them have done much in load bearing construction. They represent about half the contractors in the area. Drywall contractors who have specialized in housing are more taken with the idea. They're interested in the opportunity to enlarge their scope of work beyond hanging and finishing wallboard.
Training center apprentices were responsible for about half the man hours of construction time. This meant that trainee work proceeded only when there was a steel framing class in progress. So the process was sort of an off-again, on-again procedure. A complicating factor was the wettest rainy season in decades. It became a byword around the center that to bring rain it was only necessary to schedule work on the project. Journeymen mechanics also contributed time to framing the house.
Donated labor meant that costs could be held to a minimum. Donations of material were not accepted because DITF didn't want to incorporate steel members from different manufacturers. Instead, cash donations were suggested. The total cost of materials was approximately $25,000, $20,000 of it coming from a contribution by the lathers' union which really made the whole thing possible. As can be seen from the roster of additional donors, labor organizations also played an important part in supporting the project.
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