Choosing the Right Church Building

When planning the build of a new church it is essential to build efficiently with an emphasis on quality to ensure the best long-term investment of the congregation’s funds. In construction, time, efficiency, quality, and cost vary with respect to one. However, the degree that an increase in one increases or decreases another—for instance how an increase in quality is correlated with an increase in price—varies differently from one building to the next. The tips below explain the give and take of these various dimensions and how they change when you are building a brick, wood, or steel church buildings.

The construction of a new church may or may not have time constraints on it.At any rate, when total construction time is constrained or unexpectedly extended the overall expense of construction rises, mostly as a result of additional labor costs. Therefore, a congregation should consider its time constraints in relation to its available funds when selecting the type of material its new church will be made of.

With a wood or steel framed building the construction process is relatively easy. The skill level necessary to nail wood or bold steel beams is low. Therefore, inexpensive laborers—with minimal to average experience—can be hired to do the job efficiently as long as an experienced project manager or contractor is also hired to guide them. Another option available to save money when building a new wood or steel church is to make use of free labor by requesting that capable congregation members volunteer labor hours.

Steel church buildings are ideal for utilizing low-experienced volunteers because they come pre-welded and pre-painted so construction only involves bolting the various components together. Wood framed churches can be built using volunteers, but more supervision is suggested to ensure a high quality finished product that will stand the test of time. The added supervision is to ensure that the church is completed to meet the precise engineering specifications of the blueprints, something that is done prior to delivery in steel framed buildings. In fact, several first-rate steel buildings manufacturers show the confidence in the quality and engineering of their product by providing a 30-40year warranty on their products.

In comparison to wood and steel construction, laying bricks for a traditional brick church requires a high level of skill. The more experienced brick layer can cut time from the job, but the price of an experienced bricklayer is very high relative to an experienced wood or steel building construction worker. Bricklayers can command these high wages because the bricks that they lay impinge on the aesthetics of the church and its structural integrity.

After recognizing the financial burden of constructing a brick building, the construction industry has come up with less expensive alternatives. For instance, siding panels that are made of real or faux brick, rock, wood, etc. The advantage of these siding panels over laying brick or wood is that they take a fraction of the time to install and require minimal maintenance in comparison, which reduces upfront and long-term costs for the church.