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They're everywhere.The motel in which you stayed is one. So is the doctor's office you recently visited, the bank at which you do business, the store at which you shop, the place where your car is repaired, and the barn in which a fellow church member keeps livestock. It may also be the place where you attend church.

All of those places are pre-engineered buildings. And such structures are changing the way we design, build, and use space.

Sounds Like a Plan
The flexibility, rapid construction, quality materials, and controlled costs of pre-engineered building offer an attractive alternative for churches that are planning to build a new sanctuary, education wing, or gym.

For example, when members of a building committee first meet, they may have cathedral tastes but a toolshed budget. Conventional construction requires an awesome shopping list that includes an architect, general contractor, building materials, and labor. None of those expenses are easily controlled. Construction materials, particularly lumber, are costly enough, but their prices keep rising. And since contractors are always juggling schedules, building delays are inevitable.

With a pre-engineered building, construction is controlled from start to finish. Moreover, a church has more options to speed the process. It can ask for a turnkey design, can have materials delivered to a construction site to a volunteer crew, or ask for any option in-between.

"With a pre-engineered building, you have the advantage of a customized building's quality and versatility and the efficiency and cost savings of modular construction," said Bob Lunn of Barden & Robeson in Middleport, New York, specialists in pre-engineered building. "It allows the church to have the best of both worlds—miminizing cost and having the type of design to meet ministry needs."

How It Works
A design representative from a company that produces pre-engineered buildings works with a church to review a site plan, ministry needs, local zoning laws, and finances. The building plan then is broken down into material components that are sized and precut to exact specifications and assembled in a factory. Materials, such as insulation, roofing, and drywall are also packaged and offered wholesale to customers.

Roof trusses, support beams, panels, and other materials are shipped by truck or even by rail directly to the church site where they wait for a local contractor or volunteers to pull a crew together, assemble tools, and hoist a crane. Steve Beutler of Miracle Steel, Minneapolis, Minnesota, said many churches buy trusses only from a pre-engineering company; finish the exterior with their own material, such as cedar siding, brick, or aluminum siding; then roof the building with shingles or a steel roof.

The Advantages
Factory production of pre-fabricated materials keeps building costs down. Also, since materials are cut to fit, there's very little waste. A building can be constructed in weeks, not months, resulting in enormous labor savings. And, if a church has members who are skilled in building trades, they can easily put the building together according to an instruction manual. The cost of a pre-engineered building thus varies, depending on its size and the amount of work the church is willing to do itself.

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