A safe and comfortable home environment is a paramount priority to every one no matter their location or background. Homes are the center of our lives; shelter, a place to gather, eat, connect with friends and family, have leisure time and enjoy activities and hobbies.
Metal is an extremely popular building material for building applications because it is durable, resilient, and cost-efficient in general. One popular type of metal building design is the use of prefabricated metal building kits to complete building projects that offer many flexible designs.
If you want to find out more about metal homes, including pros & cons, rough price estimates and handy building guide you’ll want to keep reading.
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Metal Homes?
The idea of building a metal home or even a home from a kit, might sound a bit strange, but you’d be surprised how quickly this trend is expanding as more people discover the benefits of this building material and style. Metal provides many advantages as a building material, and these benefits have translated from more traditional commercial or agricultural application and have expanded into the world of residential homes. Durable, resilient, and cost-efficient; we’re diving into all the appeals of prefab metal homes.
Prefabricated Metal Building Kits
Prefab metal homes belong to a specific category of metal construction. Prefab is short for prefabricated, and the name derives from the fact that the components are constructed before being shipped to you. These components are manufactured all at once, shipped in a semi-complete form as a kit and when on-site, will fit together with ease, significantly speeding up the construction process.
Prefabricated building kits have a variety of benefits which the next section will review in greater detail.
Pros of Prefab Metal Home
To help you make your decision, we’ll be looking at the pros and the cons of prefab metal homes. We aim to give you an objective look at these homes so that you are able to make an informed decision if this building style is best suited for your needs.
Cost-Efficient
First thing’s first, the main reason that people turn to prefab metal homes is due to their cost-effectiveness. You save significant money during the design and construction process when compared to traditional home building methods.
There is no need to spend significant money on design because you can choose from a wide array of pre-tested templates and designs many manufacturers offer as a standard service. If you want something a bit more custom, you can work with a supplier to build a custom home with sophisticated 3D modeling software. Either way, it’s much cheaper than working with an expensive architect to design your home.
Once the design is good to go, the parts are constructed into prefab components and shipped to your location. They piece together easily as they were manufactured as a kit and meant to precisely fit together making the construction process much simpler than building a home from scratch. You save significant time and money during this process.
Durable and Strong
Prefab metal home structures are strong, durable, and resilient. Metal is one of the most durable building materials there is and they’ll stand up to all the exterior elements with ease.
Their interior steel framing provides excellent structural integrity that creates a building that will last for decades.
Additionally, metal avoids much of the routine maintenance that you might expect in traditional homes. No rotting, significantly less fire hazard, and the metal framing keeps burrowing pests and insects out of your home. Not only does this save you time on routine maintenance, but it also saves you money. Insurance companies often offer lower premiums to owners of metal homes to reflect their lowered risk because of these durability features.
Well-Insulated
Prefab metal homes are manufactured with precision based off of 3D models and result in pieces that fit tightly together at the seams, minimizing air loss throughout the structure’s interior. When insulated properly, the metal walls and ceilings provide an excellent additional barrier to air loss, making heating or cooling your home very cost and energy efficient.
The ability to insulate these homes well saves money on your electricity bill over time, which is a benefit that has long-term gains for your initial building investment.
Features all the Comforts of Home
While metal prefab kits might seem pretty basic at first, you’ll be very pleasantly surprised at how comfortable these structures can be to create a safe and beautiful living environment. You can fully customize the exterior and interior of the home and working with most manufacturers, you have full control over the interior layout as well as the position and design of the windows, doors, skylights, and other home features. You can build an interior and exterior design that you are proud of and that is perfectly suited to your needs.
Additionally, they can be decked out to feature all the comforts of home including all of the basic services of plumbing, heating, and electrical plus you have complete control over the interior layout and finishings. Add some exterior wrap or cladding such as brick, wood, stone and you might not even be able to tell the difference from a more traditionally built home.
Stylistic Appeal
Don’t think of these homes as cookie-cutter designs as with the advancement of computer modelling, there are many opportunities to add your personal touch to a home that is truly your own. There are many options for colors, siding, edges, and as mentioned above, you can add an exterior wrap or cladding to disguise the metal exterior and give your entire home a more traditional look.
You can customize these homes just as you would a traditional house. So we urge you to drop the stigma of thinking that these homes are one-size-fits-all. There’s an opportunity to capture all the benefits above while also adding your unique style to the equation.
Cons of Prefab Metal Homes
In order to make a balanced and informed purchasing decision, it’s important to address potential challenges with building a prefab metal home. Several aspects to consider are listed below.
Non-Traditional Home
There’s no denying that a prefab metal building kit isn’t exactly a traditional home so this would need to be considered if you were more of a traditionalist when it came to building design. A metal home kit might not be the best match for you if this is the case, especially if you felt that even after any customizations mentioned above weren’t satisfactory enough for your needs.
HOA
Home owner’s associations (HOA) and their local by-laws need to be considered when looking at building a metal framed home. Their rules vary widely depending where you live. If you have a relatively strict homeowner’s association, you might have difficulty constructing a metal prefab home as commonly HOAs tend to have narrow design parameters and tend to lean towards more traditional building designs so it might take some convincing or additional paperwork on your part. This is an aspect that’s important to address prior to making a purchasing decision.
Building Guidelines
Similar to HOA guidelines, there also might be guidelines that dictate construction and zoning regulation in your region. These will be specific to your area and are necessary to investigate prior to making your purchasing decision. Similar to the HOA, regulators may have some difficulty applying the regulations to a prefab metal home, as it may be a structure they are not as familiar with.
For this reason, you need to be sure to deal with this issue early in the process. If your municipality has a help center for contractors, then it’s worth checking with them. Keep them informed on your plans so that your construction doesn’t get unnecessarily delayed while you are awaiting approval.
Cost to Build a Prefab Metal Home
We have touted the benefits of these projects as far as cost is concerned, but exactly how much will a metal prefab home cost to build?
As you can imagine, the answer depends on many variables. Primarily, it will depend on the size and structure of your home, but it will also depend on interior layout, exterior options, and any other options and design choices that you implement.
Below you’ll find a chart that shows the average price of a metal prefab home, based on its size in square meters. Of course, these numbers are subject to change for all sorts of reasons, but this chart is a great place to start to build out your cost estimate for a metal home kit building project. Keep this in mind as a general guide, and make adjustments according to your requirements. These costs do not include building costs such as plumbing, electrical, interior finishing and foundation costs.
| Residential Home | Size (m2) | Bedrooms | Price | $/m2 |
| Home Kit 53m2 | 53 | One | $19,314.50 | $364.42 |
| Home Kit 86m2 | 86 | Two | $29,339.47 | $341.15 |
| Home Kit 101m2 | 101 | Two | $34,693.85 | $343.50 |
| Home Kit 150m2 | 150 | Four | $50,850 | $339 |
For a more exact estimate of your ideal home, compare supplier quotes today. A supplier considers your needs, then gives you a quote that is more accurate than what you might expect.
Other Uses for Steel Buildings
A prefab metal structure is quite versatile and as such, it has become popular for a vast array of additional residential uses besides just a home building. Here are a few examples of other ways you can utilize a prefab home on your property.
Garages
Garages are a very popular usage for prefab metal buildings. Metal is a great building material for a garage, as it is an efficient way to provide shelter from all the elements and gives you a secure location to protect your vehicle from theft.
Metal prefab garage kits are widely available and can be quickly constructed to your preferences. You can build garages with multiple stalls and even add additional areas for storage or a workshop. They are available in detached or semi-detached varieties.
Sheds & Storage
Metal prefab structures make for excellent additions to your property as storage or general maintenance buildings. This space is especially useful if you have a larger property or even a more rural or an agricultural property. Metal prefab structures can be as simple or as customized as you want. You can order basic shed units that can be assembled in a matter of days to provide immediate functionality for your outdoor space or you can have a more customized version designed with the help of the manufacturer.
Whatever your needs on your property, you can have them met with prefab metal buildings. Check out all the options available right here.
Other Homes
Prefab building kits are great as standard residential homes, but there’s also the opportunity to get a lot more creative with them. Much like log cabin kits in the north, one trend that has caught a lot of attention recently is the prefab barndominium structure. These kits are built using a traditional prefab metal barn frame and design scheme but are meant to be lived in like residential homes. You combine the space and roominess of a barn with all the comforts of a customized, open floor plan home.
This example represents the ability to put your design customizations on prefab kit living. We expect these trends to continue their rise in popularity and inspire homeowners for years to come.
Commercial Use
Talking about prefab metal kits as residential units are just scratching the surface of their functionality. If you’re looking for the perfect building for commercial use, then you can find it also in this construction area of metal prefab building kits. These buildings are excellent for manufacturing, inventory management, office space, and much more but that is a topic for another guide.
Getting One Built
If you’re interested in building a prefab metal home kit but don’t know where to start the following section will cover the basic steps to consider to begin your prefab metal home building project
First, get a good idea of what you want. Settle on your dream home interior and exterior to lay the basis for your design plans. It’s always a great place to get started with a high level overview of your desired outcome.
Once you have a rough idea of what you want to build, compare quotes to put the wheels in motion. You’ll receive multiple quotes from different suppliers and it’s important to select a company who can offer what you are looking for from a home. Browse a list of premade templates, or work with them to build a custom home from scratch with sophisticated 3D modeling software. They will work to turn your dream home into a reality.
Once you’re satisfied with your home’s floor plan, you can approve the quote, provide the financing to the manufacturer and they will get started. The components are manufactured off-site fully as a kit, packaged together and shipped right to you in a semi-complete form. You and your team can assemble them on site.
The construction process is more efficient and streamlined than a typical construction job but you will still need the help of a professional contractor, especially with the installation of services like plumbing, electrical, and HVAC systems.
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