SteelMaster: At Home with Mother Earth

Virginia Beach, VA, April 01, 2009 --(PR.com)-- What’s environmentally friendly, affordable, and makes a “really cool” place to call home? According to Bill Hakanson, it is his steel arch-style farm house, manufactured by SteelMaster Buildings.

Situated on 10 acres in northwest Pennsylvania, Bill and his wife Lynne built the space to live in during the spring, summer, and fall and store their garden equipment in during the winter months. Their decision to utilize steel in creating their energy efficient, environmentally friendly home garnered them a spot in the April/May edition of Mother Earth News magazine. For almost 40 years, Mother Earth News has dedicated its pages to articles that support the conservation of the planet’s natural resources while helping people conserve their financial resources.

The environmental and cost benefits of buying a prefabricated SteelMaster building are many, and include:
· The preservation of trees;
· The use of steel, which is 100% recyclable and Energy Star rated for superior energy efficiency;
· A significant reduction in heating and cooling loss, due to the Galvalume Plus dry-coating; and
· A reduction in energy consumption through the reflective properties of a steel roof.

It took less than two months for the Hakanson’s to complete the shell of their farm house, which encompasses a 40-foot-by-40-foot open square with an 18-foot peak. The absence of posts and beams creates an open floor plan, which is Bill’s favorite feature. “We have no posts interfering with our interior space, except for the ones we installed,” says Bill. “I like the sound of rain on the metal roof. I like the efficiency of design and style. I like the fact that it is different from most other approaches to home design and building. I like the cost efficiency.”

At the slab level, Bill and Lynne’s SteelMaster S Model building is designed with drip lips, a feature that sparked an idea in Bill to help save even more money and reuse natural resources by capturing rain in a cistern and using it for non-potable purposes. “Once our metal building was up, I was amazed at how much rainwater could be captured!” says Bill. “One square foot of rain, 1-inch deep, provides .625 gallons of water. That might not sound like much by itself, but it translates to 40,000 gallons of water per year that falls on our building. I estimate that using the cistern saved us about $1,500 versus drilling a deep well.”

In total, the farm house cost less than $35,000 to build, a price that the Hakanson’s say they can happily live with. “This is a pay-as-you-go project, and we’ve kept costs to a minimum,” says Bill in the Mother Earth News article. “We explore all options before spending. We will have no debt related to the farmstead, and expect to generate some income from our labors through the sale of our excess crops, shiitake mushrooms, and honey.”

Bill says to top it all off, the farm house is a great conversation piece as well, and their friends seem to really like the unique design “Most people say they think it is “really cool”, says Bill. We have built it and decorated it to be modern/industrial. I like the look of it—it is like a work of art sitting at the end of our 10 acre field.”

For more information on SteelMaster, visit www.steelmasterusa.com or call (800) 341-7007.

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Corporate Summary
SteelMaster Buildings represents over 27 years of premium quality manufacturing, providing the highest quality steel arch buildings in the world. Throughout its years in business, SteelMaster has successfully designed buildings and structures for a variety of applications across the globe ranging from residential customers, the government and the military, to numerous Fortune 500 companies.

SteelMaster offers a wide range of building applications including: garage/carports, workshops, agricultural buildings, aircraft hangars, commercial/industrial structures, roofing systems, athletic facilities, and custom building applications.