The concept of lowering your carbon footprint and turning to a greener lifestyle is no longer just a marketing tactic. Companies and individuals are investing their resources and time to take measures to protect our planet from further destruction. Natural disasters, pollution, and diseases have invaded the world and made humanity realize that if it doesn’t take control now, the future will be quite bleak for generations to come. As corporations become aware of such catastrophic implications, more and more are applying green construction methodologies. Ultimately, this is the process of incorporating energy efficiency by channeling in design, operation and construction policies that reduce any adverse impact on existing natural resources. A green building uses water, electricity and other energy sources efficiently. Its scope allows for amendments to be installed as per changes in the external atmosphere and decreases general pollution by utilizing recycling strategies and such.

Steel Built Structures

Skyscrapers dot many a landscape and form breathtaking skylines. Steel, as it turns out, is in hot demand for the construction of such contemporary buildings and homes. Along with being trendy, steel-built structures offer a plethora of advantages. If the home owner is environmentally conscious, he will definitely wish to retain a material such as steel for building purposes as it offers durability, faster turnaround time, manufacturing and value for money.

Apart from all the vital and prodigious perks that a steel structure tends to offer, the bottom line is that it is good for the planet. In this era of pollution and global warming, everyone is trying to contribute in whatever way they can to curb the overall destruction taking place. To give the future a chance, it is essential that we take steps personally to incorporate environment friendly routines in our daily lives.

From constructing tall towers that appear to touch the sky in New York to gigantic bridges in Australia, steel is a popular choice as a basic construction material. Not only does it give designers, architects and engineers the chance to help save the environment, it helps save money too on construction projects. As a building fabric, steel is one of the few resources that contains sustainability at every stage of its lifecycle.

Preservation of Resources

As compared to a conventional wooden framed house, a steel framed building consumes far less resources. Construction of a building using wood requires shedding hundreds of trees and countless hours of manpower. A steel building, on the other hand, consumes considerably less amount of water and emits a lower volume of carbon dioxide as compared to wood-based designs.

Pre-Fabricated Components

As stated earlier, steel is an incredible tool that is eco-friendly from the time of the building inception till its completion. With complex design programs, every last detail of a building can be designed in advance and planned. Each constituent of produced steel is created to ensure that it fits into the building structure and avoids any form of wastage. The time required to construct such buildings is shorter which in turn demands fewer laborers and on-site machinery.

Recycling and Waste Reduction

The steel used in the construction of the structure is recyclable. It can be re-engineered countless times and custom designed to suit the requirement of the structure’s architecture. This shows that there will be hardly and metal waste produced onsite.

Unlike wooden houses, the wood comes in bundles to the site. Then, the wooden frames are crafted according to the size and figure, scraped many times to achieve the desired shape and leaves behind a huge amount of scrapped wood in the dumpster.

You may be wondering as there are plenty of other recyclable building materials, why utilize steel? It has been discovered that this magical piece of building wonder can be easily separated from other impurities and hence has the most potential for recyclability. Steel can be recycled innumerable times without losing its strength and potency. Hence, none of it goes to the landfill. Moreover, steel is itself used to produce new steel.

Energy Efficiency

In addition to being extraordinarily durable with its strong steel structure, reduced maintenance costs and recyclability, steel structures have turned out to be immensely energy efficient too.

Once these steel structures are up and running, they are capable of holding thick layers of insulation on the exterior portion of the building for lengthy periods of time. This allows the building to remain insulated and covers any drafts and air passages that will save your energy consumption.

It will help you conserve the heat inside the house during winters and cool air during the summers. This way you can save up to 50% of the energy you would have otherwise consumed in order to keep the inside of your house warm or cold.

Longevity and Environmental Resistance

One of the other many reasons steel is favored over wooden structures is that it does not absorb any kind of moisture. Due to this, no bacteria, decay or infestation that would compromise the health of habitants of the house is produced.

Another advantage of steel structures is that it saves a large volume of construction and demolition waste from being dumped into landfill sites. Since steel structures last longer than the contemporary structures, it automatically reduces the production of construction waste. Discarded steel from trains, bridges, cans, appliances and pipes etc. ends up in the recycling centre unlike other brick and concrete waste materials which are being buried underground.

Steel structures are extremely resilient and rigid against any natural occurrences. They have all the strength to fight earth quakes of the magnitude up to 7.9 on the Richter scale, snowstorm, floods and heavy rains.

Steel buildings tend to last longer. They are there to stay for years and decades. You would not find any termites snacking on your house. As it is an inorganic material, it does not attract pests like termites, ants and molds. Therefore, no intensive fumigation and chemical treatments required to be carried out at regular intervals which again requires consumption of resources and is costly.