Estimating Simply getting a price quote for a fabric building may not feel like it qualifies as a service, and in the old days it often wouldn’t have been considered one. With a proper estimating process nowadays, however, customers are getting much more than a price. Manufacturers can offer significant value by taking the time to understand the customer’s needs and look at ways that a building can be appropriately customized. While putting together an estimate, manufacturer salespeople can hone in on key details within the overall scope of specifications to determine the best overall footprint for the customer. What building height is needed? What potential loads need to be supported by the structural frame? Does the building need to be insulated? All relevant information should be collected at the beginning to ensure an accurate quote. Depending on building use and complexity, a preliminary design may be provided as well. With budget in mind, the manufacturer might also share different options for the geometry of the structure to arrive at an ideal price point. Engineering Historically, all the engineering in a fabric structure took place before the supplier ever connected with the buyer. Companies relied on hollow-tube, web-truss framing and carried various pre-engineered, standard building sizes. Because they weren’t in a position to easily customize a structure for specific needs, any attempt to modify a standard offering typically caused the cost to grow disproportionately higher, making such changes impractical. Things shifted dramatically more than a decade ago when Legacy Building Solutions introduced rigid-frame, I-beam engineering to tension fabric buildings. This innovation effectively made customized designs the norm for fabric structures, rather than the exception. And because I-beam engineering is universally accepted, it also delivered more engineering certainty and a level of confidence that web truss structures had often lacked. With the rigid-frame approach, every building project begins with a clean sheet. Using finite element analysis (FEA) software, engineers work with the client to input the desired building dimensions while accounting for all other variables. The reliability of the software allows building plans to be rendered within days. Leading manufacturers are able to further expedite the process by employing their own in-house engineers, which serves to both enhance communication and to avoid any lags in response time that can occur for those who outsource their engineering. The conventional nature of I-beam engineering has opened a number of avenues for fabric buildings. The curved “hoop” shape of web truss structures made it impossible to control water runoff from the fabric roof; but with a rigid frame, gutters and downspouts can be easily implemented. Large, heavy hangar doors or hanging loads can be readily supported by the I-beam framing. For some applications it’s even feasible to tie a fabric structure into an existing brick-and-mortar building when looking at facility expansion options.
Contracting When working with companies like Legacy that handle all services in-house, not only can the fabric building itself be customized, but contracts can be as well. Some entities may have to handle payment terms in a certain fashion, or they might require different aspects of the job to have separate contracts. Any number of situations can arise. Having multiple contractors involved in a job always leads to some level of communication complexity. It all becomes far easier when the
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