Metal buildings

Morton buildings are nice but I've read in numerous occasions that once you have it customer service is almost non existant in some locations. I was recently looking into putting one up for the same purpose but the town I live in sucks. I talked to Armstrong buildings out of Colorado and really liked what I saw. I know someone who just put one up and has been happy with it. May not be the cheapest but that isn't always a good thing anyways.

 

Customer service is pretty important. Long ago one year we had Orkin take care of the bugs for the house and after a initial dog and pony show on day one they went away. The total sum of our contact with them was reduced to a mninimum wage person jamming a wet invoice into our screen door.

It was not too long before we got rid of them. Another contractor ternimix was brought in. And for the money we paid (I think 3000 a year) they did everything and then some. Particularly once they discovered a corner of the crawl space under the house constantly under water. They remedied that right quick and inspected the hell out of the wood underneath for mold and water damage. (Told us for 50 year old wooden foundation on block its one of the best they ever seen in this area which is one of the reasons the builder raised the home 4 feet above grade because when the rains come it gets wet, what we call wet would be flooding disaster elsewhere)

I remember another incident on customer service by phone and here in the south were certain sayings and small american things that everyone here understands and enjoys. Such as: "We'll get to that right quick" meaning it's really needs to be done NAOW. So when we talked with the rep on the phone she did not understand what "Right quick" meant. Turns out the company we were paying a monthly contractal fee for services had the call center near what we call Calcutta on the other side of the globe. So we canceled the services and moved to a american based outfit.

 

In Florida the basic kits are around 12 to 15K for 40x60, 16ft hight. Pole barn no walls or doors. PT poles and steel roof trusses.

 

Mueller is one of the better buildings, they can fix you up with one of there preplanned or work with you on exactly what you want.
I have only dealt with them in Amarillo, but know they have closer locations to you.
The problem with buying used and or building your own, is most places in AZ requires an engineers stamp, it is possible to get one, but you have to know someone and jump through hurdles.

 

Generally the contractor will go to the Code Enforcement Board in town or in the county (Searcy, they have a large room sized wall of the County with every single building built down to the garden shed level) and computer mapping that is very precise covering everything built above and below ground.

Permits for electrical, permits for sewer, permits permits permits.

We actually discovered that one of our outbuildings did not exist in this mapping system. They would accept it if we called it a chicken coop I kid you not. It has a 6 yard concrete floor with fiber that I poured myself and paved myself. Among other things. So we had to go through a state agency to acquire this building into their mapping system and be approved after the fact. If you reduced it to it's basic materials of tin and wood, it's not worth 100 dollars. But its a building so it must have... ugh.

Even though it was a chicken coop on paper we stored everything in it, particularly fuel. SMH... wonder how the revenuers would like that idea. (They wont...)

 

For sure if you live in an area that requires them, prefabbed buildings come with them, or at least any worth the money does.
Where a guy runs into problems is building his own kit or using a used building, especially if he made any changes to it.

 

Yep ^^^^ I forgot about that. I did have to deal with a lot of permit crap on my building and when I shopped it out I learned about the engineer's stamp.

I'm not in a subdivision but in a small town with other houses around me. The city code guys made it pretty clear that they didn't want a steel building there. I didn't care, it's my property and the end result looks better than half of the houses around me.

Just keep in mind you might have to deal with similar crap wherever it is you may live or build.

 

There are some counties in AZ that you will not ever be able to build a metal shop, unless the property is zoned commercial, been through that a lot with a friend, and commercial property was super expensive in the prescot area.