FS Construction Services Walters buildings

The Walters Buildings Difference

We spend a lot of time with buildings and building materials here at FS Construction Services, so we know a good quality building when we see one. Which is why we’ve been so happy to have been able to partner with Walters Buildings for as long as we have. We wanted to take a little time to highlight why they have been such good partners and maybe give you an idea of what to expect if you are in the market for a new post-frame building.

FS Construction Services and Walters Buildings

Walters Buildings has many of the same advantages of larger manufacturers while maintaining the advantages found in smaller companies. Walters’ buildings are fully engineered to meet compliance and safety needs. They produce their own steel, trusses, and trim to maintain quality. But one of things about them that our clients have appreciated the most over the years is just how customizable they are. Their buildings are produced with innovation and customization in mind, meaning they can be fitted to a wide variety of applications.

On the material end, Walters uses 28-gauge steel with G-90 galvanizing on that steel, making it protected even if it gets scratched. Their 14’ heeled trusses provide more room for insulation, and those same trusses can be customized to fit your exact building profile. They also use patented sheer transfer plates, which can tolerate more stress than traditional columns.

But none of that would matter much if Walters didn’t operate with integrity and care for their customers. Walters is a family-owned business with local representatives and a commitment to keeping their standards high.

So if you have been thinking about a new post-frame building, know that when you work with us you get the best of both worlds. If you have any questions, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services Wood vs. Steel Garage Doors

Garage Doors: Wood vs. Steel

Comparing one product to another is always an interesting exercise. Sometimes it only matters which one is cheapest. Sometimes it only matters which one looks a certain way. Sometimes you try to determine which one is going to annoy you less as time goes on. And most of the time, you are considering some variation of all of these things at the same time to see which one checks the most boxes. Today we are going to look at one of our favorite topics, garage doors, and compare two different styles: wood vs. steel.

 

Decide Which Type of Garage Door is Right For You With FS Construction Services

 

Cost

There’s no way around this one, steel doors are cheaper. The material is cheaper, it’s lighter weight so the shipping is cheaper, and generally the maintenance is cheaper.

Style

However, while wood garage doors are more expensive, you get a certain timeless style with them that steel can never perfectly replicate. To be fair, steel doors can come in beautiful designs and tones to give them the appearance of wood. But if you want the real thing, then wood is the way to go.

Maintenance

Wood doors are heavy and strong. They also provide natural insulation. However, they will need to be inspected for rot and mold and generally do best in mild climates. Extreme heat, cold, or moisture can cause the wood to expand, contract, and warp over time. Steel doors work better in all climates, though they will need to be kept clean to prevent rust and corrosion, particularly in climates where salt is used as a de-icer.

 

All in all, steel garage doors are economical, all purpose, and generally unfussy. However, as mentioned before, wood garage doors provide a certain look and style that can’t be replicated in any other way. If you are in the market for a new garage door and are trying to decide which Raynor door is right or you, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services high-quality garage doors

Project Profile: High-Quality Garage Doors

At FS Construction Services, we are all about the details. Obviously, this is a crucial component of any construction project, but even outside of a building’s function or safety, one mismatched element of a building, one thing that stands out for the wrong reasons, and the whole thing can be undone. The largest, most beautiful house in the world will lose its luster if it’s paired with an ugly or out-of-place garage door. High-quality garage doors can make all the difference.
 

Best Garage Doors for the Foreseeable Future

 
Which is why, when we had the opportunity to install two top-quality garage doors recently, it was like putting the cherry on top of a beautiful house sundae. For this project, we installed two Raynor Aspen AP200 LuxVue doors, one at 16×8 ft. and the other at 9×8 ft. These two-inch thick, thermally-efficient steel doors feature polyurethane insulation that completely fills the door’s interior space, meaning you’ll keep the heat and the cold where you want them, outside of your garage. All tracks, stiles, and hinges of these doors are powder coated white which not only increases strength, but provides an attractive look to all the door’s components. These doors also feature multiple four-square windows at the top, allowing natural light into the garage space. Our client chose the Distinct Finish Woodtone option with their doors, giving them an authentic-looking door, even down to the wood grain.

When paired with the house itself, these garage doors provided the perfect marriage of efficiency and appearance. Our client will have smooth-operating, attractive, and thermally efficient garage doors for the foreseeable future, making it one less thing on their house they’ll have to worry about or think about upgrading.

If you need to update your garage door, or your garage door opener, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services Veterans Day

Saying Thank You this Veterans Day

It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that life comes at you fast, and often it seems like it’s only just speeding up. November is a busy time of year, whether it’s harvest coming to a close, holidays on the horizon, winter prep underway, or simply the day-to-day demands of life. So often we can be too busy, or too tired, or too distracted to slow down a little bit and take stock of where we are. These annual days of remembrance such as Veterans Day can be helpful signposts along the way, a chance to think about where we were the year before or an opportunity to find some gratefulness in the midst of our busyness.
 

Show Your Appreciation This Veterans Day

 
Here at FS Construction Services, we wanted to take a moment this Veterans Day to say thank you to the brave men and women who have served our country. We hope you’ll join us this Thursday, November 11, in remembering that our freedoms have come with a cost and we have all collectively benefited from the service of so many that have come before and will come after us.

To our friends, neighbors, and clients who have served, and to the countless numbers of those we don’t know, we would like to say, “Thank you.” Your sacrifice has allowed us to do what we love and serve our community in our own small way. If you or someone you’re close to is a veteran, be sure to show your appreciation.

As always, FS Construction Services is here for your building, garage door, grain system, seed system, roofing, and other needs. Our group of experts and specialists are always happy to answer your questions, give you advice, or help you in any way. Please feel free to reach out to Gateway FS Construction Services. You can give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services building uses

Building You the Best: New Building Uses

Maybe it sounds dramatic to say, but when you think about building a new building there is really no end to the new building uses. At FS Construction Services, we have constructed our fair share of buildings over the years and each of them was its own, unique structure with its own, unique purpose. So while we like to think that any building can be anything you want, we also know that there are certain types of buildings that are better suited to specific tasks and needs than others.
 

Many Uses of Post Frame and Steel Buildings

 
Post-Frame

Many of our clients choose to construct a post-frame, or pole barn, building on their property. These buildings have almost limitless size, color, and layout options. Often, these buildings work as part garage, part recreation, part storage, part horse barn, or a variety of other uses.

A quality post-frame building goes a long way. From a backyard shed to house your lawn equipment to a machine storage shed to house your agriculture equipment, these buildings scale up and down and in and out to fit your requirements. With help from our partners at Walters Buildings, we can build you anything from storage space to a retail space to a horse barn to a church.

Steel

Now just because we’re talking about steel doesn’t mean that all customizability is gone. Our partners at Sukup Manufacturing and Butler Manufacturing allow us to provide strong, tailored steel buildings to our clients. Whether you need a huge, clear span for large machinery, or you need warehouse or retail space for your business, we can get you the steel building you want in the timeframe you need.

No matter the type of building you choose, we will work closely with you to make sure that it not only suits your needs, but looks and feels the way you want it to. If you are considering a new building, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services choose paint color

The Best Way to Choose a Paint Color

It often feels like there are few things that can bring as much joy and frustration as a paint project. On the one hand, you have an opportunity to update and transform the look and feel of a space in a relatively inexpensive way. On the other hand, you have pretty much everything else. Whether you like painting or find it a huge hassle, there’s one thing that everyone can agree on: finding the right paint color matters. It can be pretty deflating to find out that there’s a lot more green in the gray paint you bought than you realized. Or that the blue paint you bought is way darker once it’s covering an entire wall.

Let Us Help Find the Right Paint Color

Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way. At FS Construction Services, we use the X-Rite Color Matching system. And while this may just sound like a fancy name, it can actually keep you from the headache-inducing problems that go hand-in-hand with so many paint projects.

For instance, matching an exact paint color can be a nightmare, and having to look every day at something that’s close, but not quite right, is frustrating. That’s why we use a tethered spectrophotometer. Again, it sounds fancy, but this mobile tool allows us to come to you and scan any surface you like. After the scan, we are able to generate the exact color you want to match.

If you need some help deciding on accent colors or are looking for a complimentary color to what’s already in place, our Color Harmony tool can help find the optimal color to match what you have. And of course, sometimes you just need to see what it’s all going to look like before you can decide, which can obviously make deciding a difficult task. With our Home Visualizer tool, we can take an image of your space, and digitally paint it before your eyes so you can determine which color or which shade you want to go with.

With our X-Rite Color Matching system, our goal is to take the frustration, headaches, and unexpected surprises out of your painting experience.

 

If you need any color matching help, or if you are looking for someone to come and paint your space for you, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services garage door openers

Refine Your Garage Door Experience

As we say often, garage doors tend to be things that are easily overlooked until something goes wrong with them. Unsurprisingly, this holds true for garage door openers as well. At FS Construction Services, we have partnered with Raynor Garage Doors, and not only do they feature a premiere lineup of garage door choices, they have a similarly impressive lineup of garage door openers. We are going to take a look at some of these openers and sort out what makes them distinct and hopefully help you determine which one is right for you.

Premier Selection of Garage Door Openers

When most people think about garage door openers, they likely picture a rounded rectangle hanging from the ceiling of the garage. The garage door opens, a light comes on, end of story. However, there is more to the garage door opener story than just that.

Raynor’s line of garage door openers features standard openers like the Airman II, which is designed to be a no-fuss, durable opener that comes at a good price. However, there are a number of openers that have additional features like the Sentinel, which is an opener with a built-in live feed camera. The General II has corner-to-corner lighting so your entire garage is illuminated. The Prodigy II is a wall-mounted opener, which along with being quiet, also saves a lot of overhead space.

Most of Raynor’s garage doors come with wifi, meaning they can be controlled from your phone, and they even offer battery-backup openers, so you can still use your garage even if the power is out. While it may not have been something you thought much about before, customizing your garage door opener could be that extra bit of convenience or safety that puts your mind at ease.

If you have any questions about garage door openers, or garage doors in general, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

Putty vs. Spackling Gateway FS Construction Services Paint Services

Putty Vs. Spackling: What You Need to Know

At FS Construction Services, we know that when it comes to painting, there are always dozens of things to consider. Color, texture, priming, cutting, taping, etc. Along with those considerations is the ever-present issue of repairing the holes, dents, and scratches that always seem to show up. For many people, “putty” and “spackling” are words that can be used interchangeably, however there is a significant difference between the two and when you should use them.

Putty and Spackling Have Different Purposes

Putty
Putty is made from oil-based compounds that are used to fasten glass panes, seal pipe drains, and fill cracks in woodwork. For that reason, putty is often used for windows, plumbing, and for outside applications. Putty is user friendly, doesn’t require sanding, and can be painted over almost immediately. Painter’s putty is also oil based, and can be easily kneaded like dough to fill nail holes and to cover cracks and splits in wood trim before painting. Additionally, putty comes in a variety of colors to match the wood trim that is to be painted or stained. However, basic putty is not made to be used on drywall.

Spackling
Spackling is a water-based, wall-repair compound used to patch holes, dents, scratches, and other imperfections in drywall or plaster. Spackling works best after a wall has been primed, but before it has been painted. After applying spackling, you will have to wait for it to dry. Spackling will dry rough and lumpy and will require sanding to become even with the wall. Once it has been sanded, it can be painted over, and if done right, the hole, dent, or scratch will no longer be noticeable.

If you have any questions about painting, or if you don’t have the time or equipment and need someone to come and do that painting job for you, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services steel buildings

There’s No Match for Steel

Over the years at FS Construction Services we have built many, many buildings for many, many different purposes. In that time, we have found out over and over that it is hard to beat the strength and versatility of a steel building. In short, there’s no match for steel.

The Benefits of a Steel Building

Obviously one of the clearest benefits of a steel building is the strength and durability it provides. Because of that strength, steel buildings are able to offer huge, clear spans up to 200’. Of course, if cost is a bigger factor than uninterrupted space, multi-span structures are a simple way to reduce cost.

Beyond just strength, steel is rot and pest resistant, meaning you won’t have to worry about weathering and degradation. Additionally, the steel structures we build feature pre-punched purlins, girts, and eaves, allowing for a kind of precision and consistency of build that is reliable and repeatable.

If you are in a spot where you’re considering a steel building, our team of experts will work with you on finding the best type of the building, size, and more, to get you exactly what you need. Our job is to listen first and then determine how we can make your dream building come true. From agricultural to residential to commercial and everything in between, we have built pretty much every kind of structure imaginable over the years. Our partners at Sukup Manufacturing and Butler Manufacturing offer some of the highest-quality, most customizable buildings on the market, and we are proud to partner with the best.

If you have a building in mind but aren’t sure whether you want wood or steel for the job then we’ll be happy to help you figure it out. Have any questions about your next building project? Let Gateway FS Construction Services answer your questions. Simply give us a call at 866-551-3454! We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

 

 

FS Construction Services update painting services

Six Signs It’s Time to Update That Old Paint

For many people, painting is like a trip to the dentist. You know it needs to be done, you know it will be good for you in the long run, and yet you just don’t really feel like doing it. Some paint jobs have the added complexity of hard-to-reach places, lots of surface area to cover, or simply too much time negotiating a ladder. And yet despite all the work, eventually, it will need to be done. Because it’s a task that can require a lot of up-front effort, it’s one of those things that’s easy to put on hold, but holding out too long can cause long-term trouble. So we thought we would point out some signs that it’s time to finally update that old paint.

  1. Dry rot. Dry rot is caused by fungi that essentially eat away at wood, causing a loss in durability and strength. There are many types of protective paint that can be applied to protect your exterior wood to prevent this from happening.
  2. Cracking or breaking. When cracking or breaking of the base material is visible at the bottom of a structure, apart from being a sign of some other issues, it’s also a sign that it’s time to apply some new paint.
  3. Chipping or peeling. This one’s pretty obvious, but chipped or peeling paint is no good. Especially when it comes to outdoor structures, the more paint that chips away, the more exposed the material is to weathering and degradation.
  4. Color fading. It’s easy to forget just what color something used to be until you see it compared to its old self. Sunlight and a well-defined four seasons will slowly dull the color of your paint over time.
  5. Cracked or dried caulk. High-quality caulking is made to last ten years. If the caulking around doors and windows is starting to crack, dry, or peel, it could be a sign it’s time to also revisit the paint as well.
  6. If you have no idea when your structure was last painted, then it might be time to give it some fresh paint.

If you have an overdue paint job and don’t have the time, equipment, or desire to tackle it yourself, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. You can give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.