Cost Analysis of Traditional Brick and Mortar Buildings vs. Prefab Steel Buildings

Should You Choose Brick & Mortar or Prefabricated Steel?…

When it comes to choosing the materials to construct a building, most people have cost in the forefront of their mind. Yes they want a building that will be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. They want something that will suit all of their needs, but at the same time they don’t want to have to break the bank in order to achieve this. Luckily, you don’t have to spend your entire life’s saving in order to achieve this now a days. And this is due to the technological advances that have occurred in the building industry over the past 20 years. These advances have produced numerous building alternatives that not only save on cost. But also allow for creative structural ideas, and innovative build outs that weren’t possible in the past.

One such technological advance that we will be looking at today is prefab steel buildings, which are constructed using metal building kits. Even though prefab steel buildings have been around for years, the increase in processing speed of computers and machine technologies have allowed prefab steel buildings to become cheaper, safer and more readily available.

So let’s take a look at the cost differences and some of the benefits of products like prefab steel buildings compared to that of traditional brick and mortar buildings.

Traditional Brick and Mortar Buildings vs. Prefab Steel Buildings

When calculating the cost of a building it can difficult to get to the root of what you will really be spending. For instance if you are looking to calculate the entire cost of a prefab steel building then you would need to know what the interior layout was going to look like. Whether there was going to be electric and air conditioning. And what the partition of the rooms inside will be. You would also have to take into account what the building will be used for. Is it going to be used to store cars, airplanes, or is it going to be used as a grow house for agricultural endeavors, all of these factors can change the price of a building dramatically.

So as to not overwhelm you with information that is probably not going to be conducive to your decision making process, let’s take a look the cost difference between an exterior shell build of a brick and mortar building and a prefab steel building. By exterior shell build, we mean the actually building, the erection of that building, and the concrete foundation that it would sit on. This will allow you to see the difference in price of the actual building materials and what you can expect moving forward.

brick and mortar vs prefab steel

For a prefabricated steel building, you can expect to spend roughly $8 per sq. ft. for the building itself. You can expect to spend $5 per sq. ft. for the erecting of that building and anywhere from $6 to $8 for the concrete pour. This means that if you are building a 40×60 building, or a 2,400 sq. ft. prefabricated steel building you can expect to spend anywhere from $45,000 to $50,000 for the compete build of a shell structure.

For a traditional brick and mortar building, your costs are going to be a little bit different. For starters on a brick and mortar building your labor cost is going to be tremendously higher then it is on a prefabricated steel building. Prefab buildings can be constructed in a matter of hours, where as it is estimated that building a 2,400 sq. ft. brick and mortar building will take roughly 475 hours to complete. This means that for the brick laying alone your cost, which is calculated at $40 an hour will be $19,000. The concrete portion of this build out will not take as long and is calculated at a rate of $35 an hour, and it is estimated that for a project this size it will take 25 hours of concrete work. This means that just for the labor portion of pouring concrete it will cost you an estimated $875. You materials and equipment for a project like this can be estimated at $14 per sq. ft., which means that materials are going to cost you roughly $33,600. To round out the rest of your costs is the building of the footing, misc. equipment not included in the equipment that builders have brought, and the brick wall assembly itself, which all of these things together can run you around $14,000.

This brings the total for just the brick and mortar structure, without a roof to about $67,500. But you will need a roof on your building, which for a flat roof that is 2,400 sq. ft. you can expect to spend conservatively $10,000 to $13,000 dollars.

Now something that was not included in this pricing was the architecture and engineering that will go into building a brick and mortar building. For the prefab building this was included in the cost, but for a conventional building like this you can expect to spend about 15% of the entire cost of the project on design. This means that a building of like the one mention above will cost about $9,000 in architecture fees.

In total for a brick and mortar shell building, entirely completed, you can expect to spend around $89,500. This is using the most conservative estimates and also does not include any overages or delays in building that may occur.

So as you can see prefab metal building kits cost roughly $40,000 to $45,000 less than a traditional brick and mortar building. Also, as you may have noticed the actual calculation of these two types of building differed dramatically. One was rather easy to calculate while the other took many different factors to arrive at a cohesive number.  

Purchase A Metal Building Kits Today

Our goal at Titan Steel Structures is to give you the easiest building solutions without compromising quality, so if you are in the interested in learning more about the benefits of a metal building kits or prefab steel buildings then give us a call today at 1-855-964-4030, or request a free quote online. Titan Steel Structures’ expert and knowledgeable staff are available Monday thru Friday from 9:00am to 6:00pm. We’re here to serve and guide you through the building selection process.

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We are excited to work with you to create your ideal steel structure. Give us a call and we can provide you with a quick quote. We look forward to speaking with you!

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