FAQ:
Purchasing a Metal Building System from Ostro Steel Structures
1. Does Ostro match other companies’ pricing?
Yes! We do our best at Ostro to offer highly competitive pricing when we send you a quote. If a competitor has sent you a written estimate for a lower price for the same specifications, please send it over! We’ll review the specs and advise you about any differences that might create a pricing discrepancy. If they’re the same, we’ll match or beat!
2. Are you a manufacturer or just a broker?
We are a manufacturer and would love to give you a shop tour anytime you like. Our 160,000 square foot facility is just outside beautiful Augusta, GA. Please feel free arrange a tour with your Ostro estimator or just walk in!
Unfortunately, many other companies in the metal building industry aren’t so accommodating on tours—usually because they don’t fabricate buildings and therefore don’t have anywhere to tour. Why? Many of the online sellers who say they’re manufacturers are actually brokers who read you a script, buy from mega-factories, mark the building up 20-30% and then sell to you for a quick profit.
Our business model is different. We take our time with you, discuss your project and get to know your needs. We don’t pressure sell or chase the quick bucks. Our reputation as a top tier advisor in the metal building industry is paramount to us, and we’re committed to getting it right for you, on time and on budget.
3. What kind of main frames do you your buildings have?
Our mainframes typically are a welded three-plate design with tapered columns and rafters. We’ve made huge investments in technology in recent years, so almost 80-90% of our welds are robotic to ensure quality and consistency on every product we sell. We offer a variety of finishes including red oxide primer, a lighter grey primer, and—for an additional fee—custom colors and even fully galvanized framing.
For smaller structures, we do offer a fully bolt-together and fully galvanized product that meets the same codes and loads as a welded frame building, but with a reduced cost.
4. Do you sell tube steel carports? How about pole barns?
We do not typically get into the super-light duty market or wood framed structures. Our pre-engineered metal buildings are entirely clearspan and made from high-strength steel for years and years of longevity and heavy use. We find the features and cost of our metal building systems strike the right balance for most customers.
Where reducing cost is the primary goal, however, we do offer a fully bolt-together and fully galvanized product that meets the same codes and loads as a welded frame building, but with a reduced cost. Offered solely in widths smaller than 40’, this product uses the same fully clearspan design as a traditional metal building system and the same highly durable 26ga exterior cladding and trim, but we’re able to offer it at a more attractive price by using highly advanced roll forming manufacturing processes.
Carports, while cost effective, just don’t offer the same specifications, quality or durability and therefore tend to be a shorter-term solution. The pole barn market does have some premium sellers that offer a nice product, although in general, this type of building still sacrifices a lot of ceiling space to large truss systems and tends to have thinner, less durable exterior sheeting.
5. What is the difference between hot dipped galvanized and galvalume?
Our secondary framing—meaning our girts and purlins—is offered with your choice of a red oxide or hot dipped galvanized finish to match your main frames. Hot dipped galvanization, a zinc-based coating, creates a protective rust barrier between your exterior sheeting and your mainframes.
Galvalume® on the other hand is a steel mill applied coating applied on all our exterior wall and roof sheeting. This coating—patented by Akzo Nobel®—is a mixture of aluminum and zinc and provides excellent corrosion resistance as well as self-healing properties. Our galvalume roof sheeting has an additional acrylic coating, whereas our painted wall sheeting is a Galvalume® substrate with a siliconized polyester baked on finish.
6. What is the best roof pitch? What is the most cost-effective roof pitch?
It’s tough to say what’s best in your zip code without doing some design work on our end. Unless you have high snowfall, steeper roofs require more material (and therefore generally cost more) than flatter ones. Steeper roofs also create more dead air space in the ceiling area, meaning higher HVAC costs over time. However, the look of a steeper roof often evokes a certain aesthetic that’s tough to resist.
7. What is your insulation made of?
Our insulation is made of two parts: (i) a fiberglass batt system and (ii) a factory-adhered vapor barrier and facing system. The thickness of the fiberglass can be tailored to meet your R-value requirements, and the vapor barrier layer comes in various materials with increasing durability. Unlike what you’d buy at your local big box hardware store with paper backing, metal building insulation systems are entirely inorganic, prohibiting mold and mildew from forming.
8. How do you attach your girts and purlins to the building?
Unlike other factories that make you bolt on all the girt and purlin clips on in the field, we employ a dedicated team of more experienced welder-fabricators who measure out and weld our metal clips on the main frames. That way, when the building gets to the job site, all you have to do is set the girt or purlin on the clip and bolt it together.
9. What size are the gutters and downspouts?
Our typical gutter would be 6” deep, but for areas with heavy rainfall, we also offer an 8” over-sized version. For snowy areas where roof snow tends to collect and pull-down gutters, we offer a variety of snow bars, snow spikes, and gutter guards to help your protect your gutters over time against the elements. Our downspouts come in two sizes—3” x 4” and 4” x 5.5”—and typically sit at each frame line.
10. What kind of standing seam roof do you offer?
We offer a trapezoidal double lock 24” standing seam profile. Our panels are mechanically seamed together in the field to prevent water from having any chance to get in. As the old saying goes, “at the end of the world, all that’s left will be the cockroaches and the standing seam roofs.”
As an additional service for customers in the Southeast, we offer a jobsite rolling service where we will roll your panels onsite to length so that they have no overlap or through fasteners whatsoever.
For a more residential look, we do offer additional standing seam profiles upon request. Please ask your Ostro Steel Structures estimator for details!
11. How does wainscoting work on metal buildings?
For wainscoting using two different colors of PBR paneling, we would include a 16-gauge (or heavier) zee girt and a special 14-gauge (or heavier) angle at the intersection of two panel colors. This assembly allows for attachment of both panels and, when combined with a special trim, prevents the ingress of water.
12. How do stem walls, knee walls and partial masonry walls work on metal buildings?
We often would design for a partial masonry wall by using what’s called a “bypass” girt condition, meaning that your main frame is inset about 8” from the edge of your concrete depending on the depth of your masonry. This design allows for a 8” thick masonry wall with the metal paneling flashing to the outside edge of the masonry wall. Depending upon the height of the partial wall we also may need adjust the main frame specifications and design additional connections as well.
13. How does drywall connect to the girts?
There are a couple of ways to do it, and the decision probably will depend on your plans for plumbing and electrical. If you won’t have much plumbing or electrical in the wall, we can just locate our girts closer together (maybe 3-4 ft. on-center, for example), and then you would simply fasten the drywall to the girts with pancake head self-tapping fasteners. On the other hand, if you have a lot of plumbing or electrical needs, or just want more flexibility in your framing, you might consider skipping the girts entirely and installing a steel stud wall instead. This approach will allow you to locate, for example, you light switches or outlet boxes at any height, because the steel studs run vertically.
14. How do you design mezzanine column spacing?
Mezzanine framing depends on the required loading of the mezzanine floor. For example, heavier requirements for the mezzanine floor (such as for industrial machinery) would require either closer column spacing or larger columns or rafters. Ultimately, it’s a cost vs design question that our in-house engineer would help optimize. From a cost perspective, it sometimes is even the case that increasing the overall footprint of your building is cheaper than adding a mezzanine in a smaller-sized building.
As an alternative to a steel mezzanine, many customers design and build self-supporting wood framed mezzanines after the metal building shell is in place.
15. What are metal building drawings? Are they stamped by a P.E. (professional engineer)?
It’s kind of like the instruction manual that comes with a set of Legos®. The drawings start with the info you and your concrete professional will use to design a building foundation appropriate for your area. Then you’ll find pages dedicated to how the framing fits together, how the sheeting attaches to that framing and where your framed openings are located. Once you approve your design, one of our design engineers will stamp the drawings so that you can take them to your local building official to get your building permit.
16. Do you guys do foundation plans?
We’re happy to help wherever we’re licensed to do so. In the state of Georgia where our factory is located, we likely could do the foundation design for an additional fee. Outside of Georgia we would be happy to make a referral once your building drawings are complete. For a referral, you would work with a third-party engineer directly and provide them those stamped building drawings that come as part of your kit.
17. What type of foundation design and anchor bolts do you recommend?
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. A lot of different designs can work depending upon your code requirements, soil and construction site conditions. We have seen our customers use monolithic slabs with perimeter turndowns, pier and footer designs with in-filled slabs and for smaller buildings even sono-tubes. Ultimately, we recommend you discuss appropriate options with your concrete installer to select the best fit for your site.
18. What are your warranties?
We offer industry leading warranties on our buildings, including:
- 40-year limited rust-through perforation warranty on AZ55 Galvalume® roof panels
- 40-year limited paint warranty against cracking, flaking or peeling
- 30-year limited paint warranty against chalking and fading
- Limited lifetime warranty on steel capped fasteners
- 60-year warranty on steel beams (suitability of beams for local seismic, snow and wind loads in effect at time of order)
19. Do you provide construction services? Are you an erector?
Our sister company—CSBS Project Services—does offer erection services for metal building systems. In addition to our full-time, in-house crews, we work with a small but regular group of subcontracted crews to ensure that we can keep tabs on quality, cost and timeliness. When you’re working with your Ostro estimator to design your ideal metal building system, please feel free to ask for estimated construction pricing as well.
20. What if I have a sales tax exemption?
Many of our customers are tax exempt. We always include sales tax on the initial contract, but we only collect sales tax on delivery. As long as you provide your state’s sales tax exemption documentation prior to delivery, we can remove the sales tax from the delivery payment.
21. What form of payment can I use to pay for my building?
For the engineering deposit, we accept personal check, wire or credit card (with a small administrative fee charged on credit cards). The delivery COD payment must be paid by cashier’s check upon delivery or by wire prior to delivery.