Buildings

Steel building types

Every building starts from what it has to hold and where it stands. Pick the use, and each page sets out the framing, sizes and decisions that come with it.

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A single-storey steel commercial building with a glass storefront entry and overhead service doors on a paved lot

Commercial Steel Buildings

Commercial steel buildings for Calgary-area lots: occupancy, the 600 m² Part 9 line, energy code and permit drawings sorted before you order steel.

 Inside a clear-span steel shop with red-primed frames, a grey bridge crane on runway beams and a concrete floor

Industrial Crane Buildings

Steel buildings designed from day one for a bridge crane: runway loads, duty, hook height and Alberta's OHS rules settled before frames are ordered.

 A steel shop with two overhead doors and a man door on a gravel pad, aspen trees and rolling foothills behind

Acreage Shops

Steel shops for acreages near Calgary: where to put it, door and eave height for RVs and equipment, and why a hobby shop isn't a farm building.

 A tall steel machine shed with a wide open end door, round hay bales stacked beside it in a harvested field

Agricultural Steel Buildings

Steel machine sheds, hay sheds, barns and farm shops: what Alberta's farm-building exemption covers, what it doesn't, and how a change of use ends it.

 Inside a long clear-span steel riding arena with sand footing, kickboards and daylight panels along the walls

Indoor Riding Arenas

Clear-span steel indoor riding arenas for private barns and boarding facilities, and the public-use question that decides how the code treats them.

 Bundled steel frame members, purlins and stacked roof panels staged beside a new concrete slab with anchor bolts

Steel Building Kits

Steel building kits designed for your Alberta site: what a kit includes and leaves out, who owns the permit, and why a used or auction kit is a risk.

 A galvanized arch-style quonset storage building with an open end wall on a prairie farmyard

Quonset Buildings

How a quonset (arch steel building) works, where it beats a straight-wall steel building in Alberta and where it doesn't, and how snow loads it.

Red iron or light-gauge steel?

Most commercial, agricultural and large acreage buildings use rigid-frame "red iron" primary steel. Light-gauge cold-formed frames suit smaller garages and storage. This is how the two differ.

Attribute Rigid-frame red iron Light-gauge cold-formed
Primary frame Hot-rolled or built-up (welded plate) rigid frames, usually tapered, bolted at the haunch and ridge Cold-formed C-sections, screwed or bolted, used as both frame and secondary members
Secondary framing Cold-formed Z-purlins and girts spanning between frames The same cold-formed members, at closer spacing
Clear span Wide clear spans with no interior columns; modular columns optional for very wide buildings Shorter clear spans; wider buildings need interior posts
Frame spacing (bays) Wider bays, set by the manufacturer for the loads at your site Closer frame spacing
Overhead crane Frames and columns can be designed from the start to carry crane runway beams and brackets Not a crane structure
Doors and openings Large overhead and sliding doors framed between columns without losing the clear span Door sizes limited by frame spacing
Typical use Commercial, industrial, agricultural and large acreage shops Garages, small shops and storage
Drawings for the permit Stamped by an Alberta-registered P.Eng. retained by the manufacturer, for your site loads Varies by supplier; confirm stamped drawings before you buy

Quote your building

Give us the size, the use and the site, and we'll reply with framing options, the permit route for your municipality and a quote.

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