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Steel Frame Quality

The frame of your building is hidden from view but the reality is there is much more to wall framing than meets the eye. The wall frame determines the quality of your building in both the short and long term. For instance you need to think about:

• How straight are your walls?
• How flat are your walls?
• How square are your rooms?
• How flat is your ceiling?
• How straight is your roof?
• How durable is your building?
• Do you doors or windows jamb?
• Have nails popped in the plaster walls?
• Has the plaster cracked?
• Can structural pests cause extensive damage without you knowing?

Expectations

Several years ago, a consumer made a successful claim against a fast food retailer because the burger they bought did not match the appearance shown in the sales poster. The claim was unusual in that it did not involve those factors commonly associated with food complaints, eg ingredients, nutrition, taste, contamination, etc. The consumer's expectation was formed mainly by the photographic appearance of the product. Product safety and performance, even if quite satisfactory, were secondary considerations.

This type of consumer expectation, and the trading laws supporting it, has profound implications for homebuyers, investors and building practitioners. Almost everything a house has, does and displays falls into one of three categories: structural, functional or visual. Any home can achieve a higher or lower standard in one, two or all three categories. Some house attributes can be objectively described and evaluated, others only subjectively – in the eye of the beholder. Some attributes are immediately obvious, while others require expert knowledge or investigation to reveal.

Keeping up appearances

The current trend is to rely on “sample” specification when judging the look and feel of a finished house, and to incorporate these perceptions into building contracts. The client’s home should be like the display in functionality and finish – just like the burger in the food poster - because those things can be pinned down by reference to the sample. TV “makeover” programs, in which a group of actor-renovators blitzes a property to increase its sale value or to surprise an occupant, reinforce the notion that appearance counts for everything, regardless of what’s underneath.

Many people form their expectations of new homes' appearance and performance by reading journals and visiting display home villages, where they can evaluate a home’s design and appearance features, the size and shape of the spaces, their configuration and inter-relationship, nature and colour of the surface finishes, appliances and other inclusions. The underlying materials and features of the home, and their long-term contribution to the "look and feel" of the display, are rarely mentioned, let alone considered in detail.

Style over substance

This as-per-sample trend encourages definition of “quality” in purely superficial terms. It draws attention to visual and functional attributes at the expense of structural ones, even if the structural attributes are essential to support them. It shortens the expectation of building life by focusing on the shell - those things which the client can maintain and, if necessary, change or update.

For both the client and the overall community, this direction is potentially quite harmful in the longer term. It has the potential to undermine the long-term value of buildings and improvements, by discounting the value of stronger, safer and more durable structural materials. As long as the paint is uniform, the tile lines and brick courses are straight and the included appliances work, the client assumes the underlying structure is equally satisfactory. Style prevails over substance and the substance remains largely concealed from view. Providing the building can survive its defect call-back period and its statutory warranty of 6 or 7 years, any shortcomings are neatly transferred to the owner as "repairs and maintenance". It shouldn’t be like this; quality should be embedded, not cosmetic.

Focus should be on quality

The codes and standards that govern homebuilding in New Zealand embody an important principle: that homes should be designed and constructed to last a minimum of 50 years. They say very little about paint finishes and straight lines of bricks and tiles, and rightly so. These things have nothing to do with health, safety or functionality, and builders and their clients should rarely be arguing about them. The discussion should focus on quality and value; how long will the building last, what structural materials will it use, what maintenance will it require and how easily can it be modified or extended? If the underlying quality is missing, you can't simulate it with a paint job or a glossy brochure.

Why a high-quality frame is imperative

With framed construction - the most common choice for New Zealand homes – the contribution of the frame to the durability and longevity of the home is immense. The frame bears or transfers all wind loads and most dead and live loads to which the home is subjected. It also supports all cladding and lining materials and most fixtures. Failure of the frame to fulfill this function indefinitely in any part of the home can have serious consequences.

Such an important function dictates that the frame should always be made from durable materials, with no less than 50 years’ expected defect-free life. Any part of it made from anything else should be readily inspectable to assess any deterioration. The manner in which most homes are designed and constructed makes it impossible to inspect many parts of the frame, including wall frames, intermediate floor framing and cathedral ceiling structures.

The frame’s contribution to the serviceability of the building goes well beyond the impact of its possible physical structural deterioration. The frame provides the strength, stiffness and geometric stability of the building. Its ability to stay straight and square indefinitely, through varying seasons with temperature and humidity changes, is vital to just about everything attached to it - the brick exterior skin, roof tiles or sheeting, window units, door frames, plasterboard wall linings, ceramic tiles and so on. Superficial and so-called “nuisance” defects in these materials, like sticking doors and windows, brickwork and cornice cracks, nail popping in wall linings and sagging roof lines, are often traced to instability in the frame. While these defects may not threaten the structural integrity of the home, their contribution to the overall cost of ownership and loss of its value can be significant.

Steel framing: the best option for building better

When strength, durability and quality are the important selection factors, steel framing is the natural choice for brick-veneer and direct-clad construction of homes and similar low-rise buildings. Steel framing also offers other outstanding building advantages:

• Design freedom, to easily create optimum architectural forms to suit client needs and local building conditions.
• Wide availability, so the preferred design can be built virtually anywhere in New Zealand.
• Fire resistance, with excellent early fire hazard properties so you just can’t ignite it, and it doesn’t add fuel to a fire.
• Low maintenance requirements, requiring low cost and effort to keep its design qualities intact.
• Trade familiarity, so there is always ready access to the skills to modify or extend the building.
• Reliability, so no need to replace steel building products because of technical fashion or new research.

NASH believes homebuyers and building practitioners should adopt the same definitions when it comes to the quality of the homes in which they share a common interest:

• Consumer Quality
  • A well-informed consumer acting in a reasonable manner is satisfied with the appearance and functionality of the building at hand-over.
• Asset Quality
  • A well-informed consumer acting in a reasonable manner is satisfied that the building has a 50 year life expectancy with reasonable maintenance.
• Reasonable Maintenance:
  • An annualised maintenance cost not exceeding an agreed percentage of the original construction contract value.

Light, strong steel frames . . . . when quality matters – Steel: building better