With the declining quality of wood framing for building homes, uniformly designed steel framing offers truer plumb, greater strength and easy erector-set like construction.

Fire and termite resistant galvanized steel doesn't warp, rot, buckle, creep, split or splinter and it is largely comprised of politically and environmentally correct recycled steel.

Once home buyers learn about steel's advantages over wood framing they are sold.

After a decade of using the alternative material to build new homes, why then hasn't the luster of steel framing put a sparkle in the eyes of home builders?

In the early 1990s the steel framing industry projected 25 percent of new housing starts in the year 2000 would include at least some steel construction. Today, only 3 to 6 percent of new homes actually do, according to the North American Steel Framing Alliance, created in 1998 to change the fact that wood is hard to shake.

"Right now for widespread use, the market is not ready for the product," said Lisa Stevens, spokeswoman for the alliance.

While custom builders use steel 15 to 20 percent of the time, wood remains the material of choice among production builders, creatures of habit who construct most of the nation's new homes.

Putting building codes in place on the local level and finding trained workers equipped with adequate tools remain the steel framing industry's greatest obstacles.

Rather than face potential plan-check problems, most production builders prefer the time-honored tradition of wood-frame homes, knowledgeable building officials and the steady supply of skilled labor.

"On one job you have maybe 40 or 50 subcontractors. If you frame with steel everyone has to have the right tools. It's not just having them know how to use steel but having it tooled the right way. We have to come up with a fastening mechanism that will connect steel members as quickly and as cost effectively as we do with wood today," said Stevens.

Even with training programs in place, builders say they experience a steely learning curve and a sudden surge in demand for residential steel framing would find the industry unprepared. Steel framing in the hands of untrained contractors could be an energy disaster.

"The code people are watching it because steel conducts heat through the walls more than wood so insulation and "R" value becomes a consideration," said Salem, OR-based Myron E. Ferguson, author of "Build It Right" (Home User Press, $18.95).

New steel framing requirements have been approved by the International Building Code, but it's up to local jurisdictions to incorporate them in local building ordinances.

"Over a period of two years, it will be picked up by local municipalities," Stevens said.

Right now California, Florida, Hawaii and Texas are leading the way.

One builder, Callaway Steel Framed Homes in New Braunfels, TX offers the following steel framing advantages.

Published: July 31, 2000

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.