FS Construction Services Red Bud IL multi-purpose building

Project Profile: A Building For Many Purposes

Here at FS Construction Services, we know that a building can be many things: a place to relax, a place to keep your stuff dry, a place to keep important things protected. And sometimes, a building needs to be a little bit of all of those things at the same time. Recently, we worked with a client who needed just that.

Unique Multi-Purpose Storage Building Features Horse Stables

The 66’ x 120’ x 17’ building was built on a 12” stem wall and was designed to function as part agricultural storage, part machine storage, part general purpose, and part horse stables. This durable structure includes 5” x 8” laminated columns set with L brackets on the stem wall as well as a metal roof with ice guards and a seamless gutter system. The roof also includes three cupolas: one 4’ x 4’ cupola with glass windows and two 3’ x 3’ louvered. The roof is finished with DripStop protection to prevent excess moisture from building up on the roof and falling to the ground below.

The building features three overhead doors, two 16.5’ sliding doors that combine to create a 33’ wide opening, and two 12’ x 14’ doors for additional access. These are Raynor garage doors that provide weather protection and thermal insulation.

Increasing the multipurpose function of the building, three double Dutch-style doors lead to three interior horse stables. As for the exterior, the building features 3’ charcoal-colored wainscotting accents and a large, covered patio to provide extra covering and protection.

Though this building was built to serve a number of needs, we build wood and steel structures to fulfill a wide variety of functions and purposes. If you are in need of 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 buildings wood steel storage

New Offices and Storage Building for FS Construction

Red Bud, IL Construction Company Building

Over the years at FS Construction Services in Red Bud, IL, we have built many, many buildings. Whether for farmers, business owners, or homeowners, we have had the opportunity to work with a wide range of clients. Earlier this year, we did something far less common, and built a building for ourselves. This project was an exciting way to fulfill a couple of outstanding needs we had been looking to address by providing us both with some additional office space as well as a fertilizer storage building.

The building, constructed on a foundation wall, features ample storage space attached to a comfortable office space. Both sections of the building are lined and insulated. In the attached offices, they also built restrooms, a lunchroom, a display area, and a customer service area that’s connected to a 70’ long outdoor scale capable of weighing up to 100,000 pounds with an accuracy of 20 pounds.

On the storage side, there are two 16’ x 16’ Raynor overhead garage doors for drive-through pickup of palleted bulk seed and fertilizer. The walls are made with laminated studs and mounted to concrete steel plates that hold a 50-year warranty, meaning this building was designed to stand for a long time to come.

While we have loved every chance to work with so many clients around the community, it was fun to take our own advice for a time and design our own custom, efficient building that we will get to enjoy for many more years. Our steel and wood building options are a great way to get the space you need for residential, commercial, or agricultural use.

If you have any questions or would like to see what we can do 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.

Gateway FS Construction Services crop yield

2019 Crop Yield Stats Show Perseverance

For many people, 2019 now probably feels like it was four years ago and not four months ago. But if you can remember back to earlier in the year there was another big, but different, problem we were all trying to sort through: rain. In fact, the first six months of 2019 were the wettest on record for the state of Illinois. And of course, a record-breaking wet season leads to another record no one wants, prevented plantings.

According to an article in FarmWeek, “Crop plantings in Illinois last season totaled just 10.5 million acres of corn, down 5% from 2018, and 9.95 million acres of soybeans, down 8%.” One of the more remarkable stats pulled from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is that it took until June 4 for progress on corn planting to reach 50%. Naturally, it’s just not possible to be that delayed on planting and not experience a reduction in yields, which is exactly what happened. Soybeans faired a little better than corn at 9.5 bushels per acre off the previous year’s count to corn’s 29 bushels per acre difference.

And yet, the article goes on to say, with record rain and drastically-delayed planting, the yields, though down, were surprisingly strong all things considered. Illinois still went on to lead the nation in soybean production. As for our specific neck of the woods, Washington county pulled in the highest corn yield on average at 167.4 bushels per acre, and Monroe had the highest average soybean yield at 47.2. These totals sit a little lower than the state average 181 for corn and 54 for soybeans.

And yet, thinking back to last year, when it seemed like the ground just couldn’t take any more and almost every field looked like a lake, it’s amazing these numbers are as high as they are. If there’s anything to take from all this, besides some interesting numbers, it’s that we know how to weather the storms, which will always come in some form or other. So many of our friends, neighbors, and clients simply continue to persevere, no matter how dire things look. And sometimes, even after record-breaking storms, things can turn out alright after all.

As always, we are here for any of your building, grain system, seed system, and garage door needs. If you need anything at all, 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 doors Raynor

Partner Profile: Raynor Garage Doors

It can seem like we say this a lot sometimes, but it always holds true, at FS Construction Services we are privileged to work with some of the best people in the business. Not only do we have the greatest customers and clients around, we have some incredible partners that we’ve had the pleasure of working with for many years.

One of those partners, Raynor Garage Doors, has over 60 years of residential and commercial garage door expertise. Throughout this time, Raynor has dedicated themselves to product innovation, quality, and exceptional customer service. Their broad product catalog includes: steel residential doors, carriage house style doors, windloaded (hurricane) systems, residential openers, and commercial sectional, rolling, fire, and traffic doors.

A garage door is often one of those things that you don’t think about much until it suddenly stops working, and then it can very quickly become a huge problem. Working with our partners at Raynor, you’re far less likely to experience that same feeling of dread. Raynor manufactures their doors with galvanized steel components, thermally-efficient insulation, soundproofing, and the Raynor Finger Protection System. On top of that, their wide variety of styles means you can enjoy the look and the functionality of your door for a long time to come.

If you have been considering a new garage door, whether it’s for residential or commercial purposes, it may be time to consider a Raynor garage door. From reliability to efficiency to safety to design, they have it all. We have worked with Raynor as a trusted partner for many years and have considerable experience installing their products. If you are in need of a garage door upgrade or you need a door for your new construction, 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.

Walters Buildings FS Construction Services

Partner Profile: The Strength of a Walters Building

It can seem like we say this a lot sometimes, but it always holds true, at FS Construction Services we are privileged to work with some of the best people in the business. Not only do we have the greatest customers and clients around, we have some incredible partners that we’ve had the pleasure of working with for many years.

Durable Post-Frame Steel Buildings

One of those partners, Walters Buildings, has been our go-to for post-frame buildings for a long time now. There are a number of reasons why Walters stands out, and although we talked a little about Walters just recently, we’d like to share a bit more. We think one of the greatest strengths of a Walters building is strength itself. Their buildings are designed to stand the test of time, and provide long-term storage, recreational space, and more. Walters utilizes Steel Transfer Plated columns in their buildings, which have proven to provide more strength than traditional lumber grade. With this kind of durability in the bones of the building, it allows for more customization in building appearance, function, and more.

In addition to the physical strength and durability of the building, we rely on Walters Buildings because of the strength of our relationships with them through the years.  Part of the attraction of Walters is the fact that they are a large enough company to build almost anything but small enough to be ultra-attentive to your needs. They have locally based representatives that are with us every step of the building process and we have built great, long lasting relationships with them.

For these reasons and many more, Walters Buildings has been our go-to for post-frame buildings, and we have an expansive list of clients who would agree. If you are interested in constructing a new post-frame building or have any questions about other wood or steel buildings, 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.

Metal Buildings in Southern Illinois

Buildings: Large Buildings Bring Options and Space

A building can be a lot of things: a place to live, a place to relax, or a place to work. And while we at FS Construction Services have spent many years building almost every type of building you can imagine, we also understand that sometimes the single most important feature of any building is that it’s simply big enough. You can’t park a combine in a two-car garage, after all.

Post-Frame, Steel Buildings or Wood Building Options

Luckily, we have experience building structures of almost any size to fit any need. And when it comes to large buildings, there are a number of options available to guarantee the form fits the function. We talked at length last month about post-frame buildings, which can range from medium-sized to quite large, so we’ll spend more time this month talking about our steel building options made possible through our long-term partnerships with Walters Building, Butler Manufacturing and Sukup Manufacturing.

One of the major benefits of post-frame and steel buildings is their ability to support huge, wide clear spans. This uninterrupted space means ease of storage and no fears of cramped equipment or navigating around support beams. While this makes them particularly well suited for agricultural use, they are just as often used for industrial or commercial purposes. Apart from their strength, our buildings have many features and advantages for color, siding, roofing, porches doors and more.

In either instance, whether steel or wood, our large buildings are extremely strong and highly customizable. Recently, we built a 42’ W x 80’ L x 16’ H Walters Buildings post-frame building for a client after their previous building burnt down. One of the benefits of this type of building is how quickly they can be constructed, within the schedule we provided, the client had a new, huge space to store their equipment.

If you are in the market for any kind of large building, whether wood or steel, 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.

Walters Buildings FS Construction Services

Buildings: Medium-Sized Storage Buildings (and Why You Need One)

The word “storage” can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and the level of anxiety you feel when you hear that word will depend on which type of person you are. But the fact remains, whether you need a little bit of it or a lot of it, almost everyone has some kind of storage need in their life. While some things, like baseball cards, are pretty easy to store, other things, like lawnmowers, campers, ATV’s, boats, or your prized vintage muscle car can be a bit more difficult.

Post-Frame Buildings or Pole Barns

Here at FS Construction Services, we understand the dilemma, and we’re here to help. There are a seemingly infinite number of storage options and buildings, so we’ve done our best to break them down into three broad categories: small, medium, and large. Today, we’re going to talk about medium-sized storage buildings.

The most common of these you’ll come across is the post-frame building (or, as it’s often called, the pole barn). They are versatile and cost effective but most importantly, they can be designed to meet your needs and store almost anything you can think of.

Surely you have seen different shapes and sizes, but the general features remain the same: wood construction with steel siding. However, for the FS Construction Services team of building professionals, that is just the start to providing you a great, medium sized storage building. With patented STP (Shear Transfer Plate) columns that provide incredible load carrying capacity, multiple color, window, door, porch, wainscotings and roof options, your finished project can look exactly as you envision.

One of the great benefits of this type of building is just how versatile and customizable they are. Usually varying from 30-70’ in width and length, these multi-purpose buildings are sometimes used as garages, storage buildings, workshops, leisure space, or some combination of all of them. Additionally, thanks to our partners at Walters Buildings, we can also construct actual storage units. Again, these are highly customizable buildings that can be built to fit specific needs and purposes.

With any of these types of buildings, a variety of insulating materials and weather protection can be added to increase comfort and the safety of what’s inside. If you are in need of any kind of storage 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.

Costly Building Flaws

At FS Construction Services, we’re advocates of “doing things right” and believe that a little bit can go a long way. When it comes to engineering your agricultural building, that philosophy holds the utmost importance. In an article from David Bohnoff for Hoard’s Dairyman, agricultural buildings fail in large numbers simply because they are either not engineered or are only partially engineered. We agree. And that’s why we assure you our building practices and experience is our reputation – and something that won’t ever be compromised.

As we indicated in a previous blog about our NFBA standards (found here), we look to provide our customers worthwhile – and structurally sound – investment. As Bohnoff indicates, there are multiple aspects that play into the credibility of an engineered building, including the roof’s ability to withstand different loads (wind, snow, severe storms), the topography of the land, as well as the size, shape and orientation of attached or surrounding structures.

Each element of the structure needs to work hand-in-hand in order to obtain maximum efficiency and safety. Trusses alone do not support a building. Each component serves a purpose and is essential to withstand the elements previously discussed. Bohnoff is a professional engineer who visits the sites of nonengineered building accidents.  He believes the dishonestly of companies telling consumers their building is exempt from certain codes because of its agricultural purposes is no different than telling someone it’s ok to not wear a seat belt or bike helmet if law doesn’t require it.

FS Construction Services is open with our customers when it comes to the step-by-step process of engineering their structures. You’ll find the detailed steps of our building process here.

So we’d like to stress once again the importance of recruiting a builder that takes the safety of customers and integrity of their work to heart. With FS Construction Services, you’ll receive the utmost professionalism and sound product.

Call us today at 866-551-3454 to discuss your building goals.

 

Sukup Introduces Pre-Engineered Steel Buildings

When it comes to on-farm buildings, Sukup Manufacturing had the farmer in mind when introducing a new product line of customizable steel buildings. These steel buildings can be tailored to your agricultural and industrial on-farm needs and can serve as a complement to your existing post-frame wood buildings.

FS Construction Services will work with you to develop and build these structures that feature clear span construction and standing seam or screw-down roof panels. The design allows farmers to adapt their space to their specifications. If you’re looking to create a new shop and office area or need more room for today’s larger equipment – this is your building. The addition of this product line serves as just one more option to expand the functionality and efficiency of your farming operation.

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FS Construction Services can provide Sukup building features such as:

  • Straight or tapered columns
  • Clear span construction (minimum number of interior columns)
  • Pre-punched purlins and girts for a proper fit and faster install
  • Galvanized purlins and girts
  • Eight exterior and trim colors

The standing seam roofs create a tight, durable and virtually leak-proof seal. Movable clips allow the roof to expand and contract with temperature changes, preventing stress on the roof components. The screw-down roof is economical and easy to install.

FS Construction Services is here to answer the questions and walk you through the options and best steel structure for your needs. Give us a call today at 866-551-3454 with your questions. We look forward to working with you!

 

Metal Roofing & Siding Benefits

Installing a metal roof and siding can be the attractive and economical solution to your problem when frustrated with the constant maintenance of your traditional roof and siding.

FS Construction Services offers a wide range of products and services for metal roofing and siding, and we are an Authorized Contractor of Fabral Metal Wall and Roof Systems. But before you make the transition from asphalt to metal, you’re probably wondering, “Why?”

Here are the most common benefits that we share with our customers interested in making the switch.

1. Energy Star Tax Credit: You can actually save money by installing Energy Star approved metal roofing products by Fabral. In 2011, the government issued tax credits up to $500 or 10% of materials used. FS Construction Services can walk you through the process.

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2. Lifetime: With life expectancies of more than 30 years, installing a metal roof and siding may mean it is the very last roof you’ll ever need to put on your home or business. Colors do not fade and materials do not rust.

3. Color Visualizer: Choosing the color specifications of your roofing and siding couldn’t be easier with the Color Visualizer. Use the basic visualizer or upload a photo of your actual home or business for exact matching. Plus, you can see which Energy Star colors can be applied for credit.

4. Solar Savings: FS Construction Services can work to achieve Fabral’s solar roofing system for you as well so you can maximize your energy costs and see an ROI in just ten years.

5. Step-by-Step: Curious about what it takes to achieve a metal roof or siding? We have the step-by-step guide when it comes to installing the panels to your structure. So you’re in the know – the entire way through.

If you still have additional questions or are looking to explore your options, give us a call at 866-551-3454. In the mean time, check out examples of FS Construction Services’ work in our Metal Roofing and Siding section.