Most California houses are wood-framed. Typically, the walls are built with wood studs and covered with plywood and gypsum board; floors, ceilings, and roofs are built with wood joists, rafters, and trusses. We have designed many of these.

The other day I found few pictures of a “steel-framed” house that we designed a few years ago, and I thought I would share them with you. This house was custom-built for clients who wanted the house steel framed in order to save trees, increase fire-resistance of the house, and to minimize future problems due to termites and water leaks.

It turned out to be a very interesting project for us, as we had to adopt many steel construction details used in commercial construction to residential construction. Most of the structural members were steel. Lumber products were primarily used for wood nailing plates and plywood sheathing.

Here are few pictures taken during the construction.