The median monthly asking rent in the U.S. is nearly $2,000, rising 20% since March 2020. Rent increases are making it difficult for many individuals and families to pay their monthly bills.
One company is working to make housing more affordable by changing the trajectory of modern housing construction. Norhart, a construction and property management company and an SFIA member, is using cold-formed steel (CFS) framing to build housing components offsite, increasing the speed of construction and decreasing construction costs by up to 30%.
TikTok Video: Norhart opened a manufacturing facility to produce steel wall panels, ceilings and floors offsite, before shipping to the construction site:
Affordability with Steel Framing
Norhart’s goal is to reduce the cost of rents by lowering construction costs, says Norhart’s CEO Mike Kaeding in an article by Pioneer Press. Norhart, located in Forest Lake, Minnesota, developed a solution to save money by using steel studs to improve productivity.
The company has an apartment manufacturing facility known as EVE, where steel wall panels, ceilings and floors for apartment units are built before being trucked to the construction site, says Pioneer Press. The 25-person production team completes the framing, bracing, drywalling and weather-proofing all in a factory.
The facility has its own stud former to create metal studs from coils of steel. It can also cut precise hotels into the studs to accommodate bridging members, as well as electrical, plumbing and HVAC elements.
With the help of a stud forming machine, the Norhart facility can produce a wall every 15 minutes, which makes for two and a half apartment units a day, says Norhart’s production and automation manager Charlie Igo.
The Steel Framing Advantage
Cold-formed steel (CFS) leads the way as the preferred framing material for prefabricated structures for multiple reasons. CFS is:
- A pre-engineered material that can be cut to exact lengths
- Dimensionally stable and does not expand or contract with changes in moisture content
- Lightweight compared to wood and concrete
- Resilient and will not warp, split, crack or creep when exposed to the elements
- Sustainable and 100% recyclable
- Durable and has a high tensile strength
- Non-combustible and is a safeguard against fire accidents
Reduce Construction Cost by 50%
According to Pioneer Press, by using these processes, construction costs are lowered up to 30%. Kaeding notes that the goal is to get the savings up to 50%.
Norhart has been using this streamlined manufacturing process for 6 months. It has the potential to decrease construction time on an apartment complex from 15 months to 9 months, says Keading.
Read the Full Article by Pioneer Press
Additional Resources
- Builders Embrace Steel Framing for Offsite Construction
- 5 Reasons Why Cold-Formed Steel Can Save Time and Money on Projects
- SFIA’s Williams Sees Robots Being a Staple in Future Steel Framing
Cited from BuildSteel