It is true that you can get carports in different materials, the most common being wood, plastic and steel. So which one should you choose – and why? 16′ Garage Door Seal In my humble opinion, metal carports – especially steel – have a few advantages the others don’t. Let me explain that in a little more detail.
Steel sheets are used a lot for small buildings like a garage or carport. Usually, the steel is pressed into some shape to make it stiffer and stronger than it would be if it was flat. As an example, corrugated steel sheets are thin and light, but strong enough that not much else in needed to support a building. The typical steel carport consists of no more than a few steel profiles and some cladding sheets. Screw that together and you have a light building that is strong enough for Best Finish For Wood Garage Doors most weather conditions – perhaps excluding hurricanes and tornadoes. Steel is also resistant to bugs like termites, which might infest and slowly eat a wooden building. It can also be made quite resistant to moisture, if the right kind of paint is used to coat it with. Nowadays, steel parts come with a strong, factory applied coat of paint, which should last for many years. As long as it is intact, you do not need to worry about your metal carport rusting – that is for certain.
Because steel is so strong, it also tends to be much more compact, compared to a wooden construction of similar strength. This means that steel carports are typically quite compact compared to wood, and a lot stronger than those made of plastic. This also makes a difference when you buy a carport kit, as it will be much easier to transport it home. But even steel can buckle and bend, and when it does, it is permanently damaged. A dent or two in the exterior cladding doesn’t hurt you much, but the load-bearing parts must not become deformed in any way. If they do, the whole building could collapse. Any steel building large enough to park a car in is at risk of being damaged in even the gentlest collision with your vehicle, so don’t let that happen. Individual steel parts as those used in many small steel buildings, are often made of pressed steel sheet. They are strong as long as they are not subjected to force in any other way than what they were engineered for. A massive steel beam set deep in concrete would not care if you hit it with your car, but most likely there are none of those in your steel building. It is not that I am insinuating that you are a poor driver, of course; just that you should understand what your steel carport is – and is not – capable of.
Nothing is ever perfect, but steel carports come quite close when the goal is to get cheap, compact and durable shelter for your car or other vehicle.
