How Steel Trusses Make High Ceilings Feel Effortless
Open rooms and high ceilings are the modern dream, and it’s not hard to see why. What’s not to like about being inside where you’re comfortable, but feeling completely free? The only problem is that not everyone gets this, no matter how much they want it, and no matter how much money they throw at contractors.
Sometimes, in all the chase for that airy look, you knock down walls only to reveal a mess of bulky beams crisscrossing and making the space look anything but open.
Now you’ve got a dining room that looks like it’s in a factory, and on top of that, it feels claustrophobic.
So, how do you get the opposite of claustrophobic?
What Actually Makes Tall and Open Ceilings Possible
You want the room to feel like it just… Happened. Effortless.
But as paradoxical as it seems, ‘effortless’ takes a lot of planning. You see, when you build a roof, you have 3 limits: how strong the material is, how the load gets distributed, and how far things can span without support.
Wood hits 3 out of 3.
If you have a wooden beam, you can stretch it up to a point, and then it needs a post underneath. If there’s no post, the beam will start to sag, which is the reason why so many tall ceilings look so busy, with all the thick beams and awkward columns.
Luckily, nobody’s forcing you to choose wooden beams.
Steel trusses solve all those limitations at once; they distribute the weight across their framework, and they also let you make the roof taller and steeper without risking stability. And unlike wood, steel doesn’t move, so you’ll have no problems with sagging and uneven lines. Just a perfect, clean-looking ceiling you won’t be able to stop staring at.
Naturally, you have to think about the source of the steel trusses, meaning you should only work with reputable companies, such as Buffalo River Truss, which specializes in them. You don’t want someone who’s selling them as part of a larger inventory or a reseller.
You want someone who’s dedicated to creating the best trusses possible.
Design That Works Better Because of Steel Trusses
Here’s what’s possible because of steel trusses.
No Random Columns in the Middle of the Room
Some homes have these so-called open-concept layouts, but then have random posts.
For example, they have a post slapped between the kitchen island and the dining table. That mostly happens because there’s a wooden beam that couldn’t cover the whole distance, so someone had to drop a support column somewhere.
And now there’s this random thing sticking up like a sore thumb.
Steel trusses handle that problem 100%. They distribute the weight across the entire framework, so they can span the whole way without support. That means that your open-concept layout stays truly open.
Light Spreads Through the Whole Space
Everyone wants as much natural light as possible, and for good reason. And it doesn’t get better than plenty of natural light paired with high ceilings. However, many people don’t factor in light when they plan their layout, and high ceilings don’t really work if light doesn’t follow.
If you’re working with too many structural constraints, though, then you can’t place windows where you want them but where the structure allows.
Hardly ideal, right?
Steel trusses can solve this, too, because they allow you to build taller walls and wider window openings, since you don’t need all that heavy framing that blocks glass. The result is light coming in evenly and making the space bright and beautiful, as opposed to pooling in awkward corners and leaving the rest of the room dark.
You Can Plan Rooms How You Want
If you have any experience with floor plans, then you know you need to look at where load-bearing walls go so you can plan around that. It’s not the best, but sometimes you don’t have a choice.
Steel trusses give you plenty of choices because the structure carries itself, so you can play with interior walls. You don’t have to have any where you don’t want them, and you can design the space to be exactly what you want.
What’s even better is that, if 10 years from now you decide to change things around, you can do that and knock down all the walls you want.
Conclusion
If you were to sum up the steel trusses’ biggest perk, it’d be – freedom.
Freedom to design your dream space however you want because you know the roof is fine, whatever you do. Those open, airy spaces you see on Pinterest can be your reality if you plan well, and you’ll never have to deal with awkward columns that you’re trying to pass off as decorative, but actually, they have to be there, or the ceiling will sag.
Open and flexible is what everyone wants, and with steel trusses, it’s more than possible.
You let the steel beams do all the work while you focus on the fun stuff.