Civil Construction Or Steel Structure?

It is not a simple question that could answer with one word. This question bothers a few of our customers. Our answer to that is it depends on the conditions of your local, which are: the natural environment, usage of the building, budget, earthquake, durability, and appearance.
Please check our reviews about these aspects below, hope you will make your own decision after you finalized this article.

This is the most important factor that affected the buildings. Buildings in different places are very different, no matter the style, or the materials.
Snow, wind, geological conditions, and corrosive materials, affect the building mostly.

In cold areas, snow is a big load on the roof structure, so usually, we could notice the steep pitch of the buildings in a cold area. Besides the large slope, you may still need to clean the snow regularly.

Wind pressure to the wall and roof. In some islands of the tropical zone, the buildings may face hurricanes frequently. During a hurricane, the wind could tear apart the building easily if it is made of thin wood or steel sheet. So, could steel structures withstand a hurricane? Yes, if it is designed to withstand a hurricane. View more here (Could the steel structure building withstand the hurricane?)

If the geological conditions are bad, for example, the bearing capacity of the foundation is very weak for some reason, maybe there is some mud, water, sand, or some other reason. Then you should not build with concrete. Why? Because the weight of a concrete building is too large compared with a steel structure building. So, if the cost of the foundation treatment is too much, then you should build with a steel structure.

If there are some chemicals or salt in the surroundings, which may harm the building, then you should consider it carefully. As you know steel is lack resistance to corrosion. Therefore, if there are too many corrosion materials in the environment, then you should build with concrete. Otherwise, the treatment to the surface should be thicker epoxy paint or hot dip galvanized, or you should use aluminum and stainless steel.

Besides the environment, the cost is the most concern. Almost everybody would like the cheaper one. Though cement, sand, and other construction materials are cheap than steel, the total cost of a concrete building is more expensive than steel building. Because the steel building needs less manpower and fast installation. In most areas around the world, manpower is more expensive than materials.
So, please compare the steel building cost with your local construction cost, if your local doesn’t have abundant manpower and plenty of construction materials, then you should go with steel buildings.

Civil construction is a traditional building method, it is widely used for all kinds of buildings. From temporary shelters, homes, villas, storage, poultry house, commercial center, conference hall, theaters, etc. It is good enough for all the buildings, but also this kind of buildings have their limits, which are long construction period, heavyweight, high cost, etc.
So, that means if you are critical of these factors, then maybe you should turn to other construction methods. Besides that, the large span buildings, such as the gym, movie theater, exhibition center, assembly halls, plane shed, hangar, etc., all have large spans, which is hard to adapt the civil construction, because of the heavy weight of concrete. In a word, you should build this kind of building with a steel structure.

If you are in a seismic zone, earthquake-proof construction is the only option. Steel structure building is better than civil construction, is it true? Although some civil construction can meet the requirements of being earthquake-proof, the materials, which are concrete, sand, brick, etc., are all fragile during an earthquake. So, if there is an earthquake, your building will most likely be broken. Even if it could survive after the earthquake, you will have to do a lot of repairs. And most likely, the repair would cost more than building a new one.
But if your building is a steel structure, it would survive during the earthquake, and it won’t need too much repair. What makes that? Why does civil construction must repair, and steel structures don’t need? That is because steel is flexible. An earthquake won’t harm the steel building. Even if it needs some repair, mostly you could fix it with some screws. And screw is cheap.

Talking about durability, civil construction first comes to mind. It is true that concrete buildings will stand longer than steel buildings. That is why there are so many ancient buildings that are all made of stones and cement.
The stone building definitely could stand for hundreds of years, but nowadays we hardly build with stone, instead of which we build with bricks, concrete, steel bar, also windows and doors. Except for the main structure materials, we also decorate or insulate the building with panels, which are usually EPS or PU foam. They are looking good, are lightweight, standardized material, and are easy to build with. But they are not strong as stone. The service life of modern buildings is usually around 50-70 years. You may say that there are buildings being torn down at their early ages, yes, that is true too, but we are not going to discuss that here.
After talking about the service life of civil construction, let’s see how steel buildings do next. Surely that steel building has less life than civil construction because steel is easy to corrupt in the air, and only need some water and oxygen. Their life usually be less than 50 years. So, is steel building bad than concrete buildings? Maybe and maybe not.
For most steel buildings, the wall panels and roof panels usually be color-coated steel sheets, their service life is about 10-15 years under normal conditions. That means you need to update the building envelope in its service life, otherwise, there will be leakage or some other problems which affect the use. But if you change the steel sheet into an aluminum sheet, its service life will reach up to 50 years or even more. As you know, aluminum is very stable in the air, because of its dense oxide film on the surface.
The envelope reached 50 years of life, how about the main structural steel? Could they reach 50 years too? Yes. For normal circumstances, the treatment of steel columns and beams would be paint, alkyd, or epoxy, it would be good enough. But if the environment is hazardous for steel, moisture, chemicals, etc. then we should choose hot dip galvanized treatment. It will help the steel to stand for 20 years at least in the wild. It would be better if used indoors.
So, here concludes that steel structure buildings could be as durable as civil construction.

Regarding the appearance of the buildings, different people have different views. But most buildings, especially shed, workshop, warehouse, etc., this kind of buildings do not need too many new ideas. They almost look the same. Achieving the goal of usage is the most important thing.
And the new kind of panels will look brilliant, such as the aluminum sandwich panels, or EPS board with marble surface, all these kind of panels will let the building looks great. And have good performances of insulation.
These are the main factors that affect the build method, hope you made up your mind now. Civil construction and steel structures have their own advantages and disadvantages. Please know more here.