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HOME / REAL ESTATE Sunday, December 17, 1995 Albuquerque Journal Page 1, Section G Proving Their Metal
STEEL SKELETON: Deets shows off the steel frames in an unfinished home he is building for sale in Cedar Crest. "You're not cutting down any forests. Spotted owls don't like steel studs."
AWARD WINNER: The exterior of Deets' home in Cedar Crest. The house won the Buyer's Choice Award for homes costing $299,000 to $349,000 in the 1995 Parade of Homes HIDDEN METAL: The living/family room at builder Mac Deets' steel framed home in Cedar Crest. Deets is one of a few Albuquerque builders using steel instead of wood in home frames. Little of the steel is visible in most such homes. About 75,000 homes are expected to be built with steel frames in 1995, up from 40,000 in 1994, 13,000 in 1993 and 500 in 1992, the association says. With steel, builders worry less about surges in lumber prices resulting from supply cutbacks caused by efforts to protect the spotted owl and other endangered creatures, Deets says. “You’re not cutting down any forests. Spotted owls don’t like steel studs,” he says. Steel builders also don’t have to worry as much about declining wood quality. Deets contends quality has suffered as timber companies have turned to younger forests to offset environmental restrictions. The result: smaller logs with more branches and more knots. “In the last two years, wood has doubled in price and the quality has been cut in half,” he says. And, there are other reasons why steel is superior to wood, he says. “Steel lasts forever,” he says. “It’s recyclable. There’s less waste. It’s stronger and lighter than a wood stud. It’s termite proof. Every piece is straight and true” Strength is a particular asset. Builders can create larger open spaces and higher walls than they can with wood, Deets says. The American Iron And Steel Institute says steel-frame homes withstood Florida’s Hurricane Andrew. Steel framing is used routinely with commercial buildings. So why hasn’t it caught on with more Albuquerque-area home builders? Mac Deets opens the access door in the closet of the guest bedroom to show off 6-inch steel studs running vertically up the wall. It’s the only place where there is evidence that metal — not wood— forms the skeleton of his two story Cedar Crest home. Deets, who co-owns a company called Sunova Builder, is one of a few builders in the Albuquerque area catching onto what steel and home-building industry officials say is a trend toward steel-frame homes. Nationwide, 35 percent of builders polled by the National Association of Home Builders said they planned to use steel framing this year.
For the Journal
BY KATHERINE SALTZSTEIN
NM BUILDERS FOLLOW TREND TO USE STEEL IN PLACE OF WOOD
Two reasons, says Deets. One - construction workers don’t know how to work with steel. “Residential workers are wood butchers,” he says. “It’s hard to teach carpenters new tricks. With steel, they use a screw gun instead of a hammer and nails. They’re using a (metal cutting) chop saw instead of a circle-cutting wood saw. But once you learn it, it’s as quick.” Second, many building inspectors are unfamiliar with steel and don’t know how much weight it can hold, he says. “They don’t want to stick their neck out,” he says. “The permit department is not familiar with load tables for metal framing. They won’t OK it without an engineer’s stamp.” Deets began building homes with steel frames after working for eight years as a construction manager for Harrison Contracting Co., which specializes in commercial buildings. A few years ago, Deets and his wife, Paula, started Sunova Builder, constructing steel-frame homes in the East Mountains. When the business took off, he quit Harrison- “My familiarity with the product helped a lot,” he says. Sunova may be the smallest of area building companies working with steel. One of the biggest is John McDonald, a Belen builder. In the past few years, he has built 350 homes, including 325 in New Mexico, with steel framing in six subdivisions in Los Lunas, Albuquerque and other cities. Two of his homes are in California and one is in South Africa, where he shipped a “do-it-yourself” home. To eliminate the “very expensive learning curve” for-workers, he set up a training program at his House Factory at Belen Inc., winch manufactures the framing materials. New Mexico Sun Homes Inc., owned by his son Douglas, is the contractor. “There are no disadvantages. Everything is an advantage,” says McDonald. Once carpenters, electricians and plumbers understand how to work with steel, they like it better than wood, he says. Sixty-six percent of the steel used for framing studs ponies from recycled automobiles, McDonald says. Another building company that has tried steel is Amrep Southwest Inc. of Rio Rancho. 1993 and 1994, the high price of wood drove Amrep to try steel studs for 200 homes. “We had very good luck with it” says Dan Buchly, senior vice president, “It was a little difficult for people to get used to.” But when wood prices went down, the company switched back to wood. Jim Folkman, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico, says steel framing rose in popularity a couple of years ago “when wood prices went through the ceiling.” If wood prices rise again, steels popularity will too, as will those of other alternatives like concrete, Folkman Says, “As long as the lumber price stays the same, we will not not see a drastic increase,” he says. Folkman says steel framing may save trees, but “steel requires a certain amount of energy comsumption” to process. And he disputes Deets’ contention that wood’s quality has suffered. “There hasn’t been that much deterioration in the quality of the lumber since the price has come down,” he says. Deets hasn’t abandoned the use of wood for some of the framing and interiors of his homes. In the garage of a Sunova home for sale in Tijeras, the side studs are steel but the trusses for the gabled roof are wood. The 1808 square foot home sits on 11/2 acres. It’s priced at $169,500. Except for the steel studs hidden in the walls, Deets’ own home looks like any other modern, two story dwelling except for many personal touches. It features long, three-tiered shelves in the two story living room. There are cedar and knotty pine doors and kitchen cabinets, an atrium with a fountain in the entryway and glass blocks in the two story hallway wall. The house won the Buyers Choice Award for homes costing $299,000 to $349,000 in the 1995 Parade of Homes. Since l991, Sunova Builder has built about 20 homes in the East Mountains area costing $125,000 and up.
Reprinted by permission of the Albuquerque Journal
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