Why a steel home?

We lived in a wooden home in Utah/USA for a few years. A new experience, if you are used to homes made of stone.
The wooden home was “alive”, since we could feel the motion of the house in strong wind gusts.


    

What´s left from a home made of wood (discovered in the USA) proofed, that nothing lasts forever.  


... Own preferences and good experience we made, while building a steel hangar led to the decision to build our home with steel.

Without any doubt, wood creates a very cozy living atmosphere, however it ages fast (especially outside) and requires more maintenance, which is harder to perform, the older you are.
We would not miss Wood inside our home though. 


At first we came up with a specification for our home:

• Appr. 120 m² living space without any steps in one level  (no basement)
• A passive-home construction (extremely good thermal conductance U-value, very low energy costs...)
• Facing south with an optimized surface for solar energy (decision for a lean-to roof)
• As much own performance (DIY) in planning and building to keep the cost low.
• ...

• We downloaded “Google Sketchup” (freeware) und started drawing. 
  It lasts a while to get used to the new programme, but it is definitely worth the effort.
  
  
  
  
  The first sketches made with Google Sketchup.
  
  
  
  
  
  Layout... 
  
  Now, that our planning was done, we contacted the architecture office Weinand in order to perform all necessary documentation to obtain a permission for our project. 

Based on our previous experience building a steel hangar, our Partner for the steel construction is Thomas Laube. 
Thomas is a vital source for steel construction. He offered the perfect symbiosis of private and commercial labor for our project.
He started the successful cooperation with the statics office Fischer & Weisbrod . Mr Fischer designed and calculated our steel home perfectly in line with our needs.

Based on the statics we performed the drawings – again with Google Sketchup. 




Fascinating!!! You can “surf“ trough any hole of the 3-D drawing. If it fits in the drawing, it will fit (correctly manufactured) on the construction site as well.





Fascinating!!! You can “surf“ trough any hole of the 3-D drawing. If it fits in the drawing, it will fit (correctly manufactured) on the construction site as well.


- for more info see  Building

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