Open Web Floor Truss

[Daniel]

Metal is great. The cost is MUCH higher than it used to be...studs were like 50 cents a few years ago...now wood is cheaper. If you build your floor out of steel be sure to put tons of glue as it will be prone to squeaking. My house is all steel frame and we have built several steel houses. My advice on floors: use cement. Even second floors. Steel and cement, the only way to go. You can even make countertops out of steel or cement. Termites will amaze you. They eat treated lumber, utility pole soaked in tar, T1-11...etc...but not steel. Rust is not a problem, I have old studs and beams that have been sitting outside for years and they still look good.

Daniel R Diamond

[Carey]

As long as the galvanized coating on the steel is in good condition, OR the metal has another coating to eliminate oxidation (rust), the metal should be fine here. Rust is only an issue if the stud is in a highly corrosive area (it is a problem for the Volcano National Park people...so if you are near fuming vents you might want to reconsider steel...but then if you are building near fuming vents I don't think rust is the main concern....)
It is also a problem in areas that are wet/moist constantly (If you have a leaking water pipe in the plumbing wall that you do not notice for a few years, but also in an area that has constant high humidity, like the Kohala cloud forest may be a real problem.)
Houses & other structures have also been made with other metals - the framing in our home is aluminum (product of the early 70's, when that was the material of the future, before energy costs were high), but there are also buildings made with titanium (remember Ghostbusters?) including the roof cladding material at Imiloa Astronomy Center. The gutters at KMC are stainless steel, and many buildings utilize copper, which oxidizes green (verdis)



Edited by - carey on 09/22/2007 15:33:04

[rbonplaza]

This may be premature since our main house has still not been built, but I would like to suggest bamboo as an alternative as a building material. Not getting any financial benefit from this, but I see bamboo as a real alternative to wood, steel or concrete as a structural component in the tropics.

[Rob Tucker]

I know that bamboo has it's qualities and there are those who appreciate it as a building material. I tried it out merely as a decorative feature.

I have exactly two pieces of bamboo in my home and now have problems with bamboo. Some type of beetles or bugs have infested them.

So someone else can build away with various sticks and twigs and large species of grass. I don't care for the problems and really dislike bringing out the poisons to try to contend with having used bug food in my building.

No offense intended to your post though rbonplaza. To each his own.