A new system for making light-gauge steel wall panels lays waste to traditional framing methods.

Urbancorp had been a "stick" builder in its low-rise residential segment, and a steel framer in its high-rise segment.

Executive Vice President Rudy Trevisan says the company recognized that using the material in the low-rise segment could translate into a solution for King West Village project for the oft-mentioned reasons cited by those who make the switch to steel.

"It's just built better," says Trevisan of a steel-framed home. "It's stronger and straighter, with no nail pops, splitting wood or warping. These days here, the busier the construction industry is the more demand there is on materials like wood. Wood isn't given the proper time to dry and therefore a lot of poor-quality material is brought to sites."

Once on site, wood can create space-eating stockpiles of inventory. "There's at least 5-percent waste lumber and it would be all over the place," Trevisan goes on to say. "Waste ties up a lot of space with bins and garbage. It's just a logistical problem. We found with the type of product that we build, the steel construction is much more adept and much more efficient."

But a simple switch to steel framing wasn't enough to satisfy all of King West Village's logistical demands. It took turnkey arrangement with Cambridge, Ontario-based KML Engineered Homes to make the project run smoothly.

"They would engineer the product, manufacture the product, deliver the product and erect the product," says Trevisan, "and make it ready for the next application that would go on exterior and interior surfaces, which were brick and drywall."

The product: pre-fabricated light-gauge steel wall panels, delivered to the site in one piece via tractor trailer, ready for installation. KML calls them its Genesis panels.

"Panels were provided with Codebord and exterior sheathing as a substrate for the brick exterior," explains Ken Meinert, KML's president and COO. "Sheetrock panels were put in on the site, as in conventional steel framing systems."

KML delivered three trailers a day and most of those panels were erected by the end of the day. Remaining materials took minimal space. So did trash. The entire project produced only a wheelbarrow full of metal scrap, which, like most metal scrap, will be recycled.

The prefabricated Genesis panels came in hundreds of different sizes, generally in 8-foot or 9-foot heights and widths the length of the wall. The only size constraints were those imposed by highway travel.

"This allows us to make useful wall panels without joints," explains Meinert. "We rarely have free spans that cannot be panelized. The goal is to design panels that work structurally and allow the site work to be fast. And two men can generally handle a very large panel." KML also supplied the panels that made up the floors and ceilings, using 8-inch cold-rolled steel C channel and proprietary shapes. "The drywall is applied directly to the bottom of the floor panels, and wood sheathing is applied to the top of the floor panels on site," Meinert says.

Both the wall and ceiling panels were designed through KML's fully integrated proprietary Genesis System that allows a structural engineer to virtually walk through a completed unit, creating panels or making changes with a mere click of the mouse.

The Genesis System assigned a number to each panel, and the crew of Niveau Construction, which KML certified to erect the framing, referred to blueprints that detailed where each panel belonged. It was a system that worked almost too efficiently.

"Because our system is fast track, we caught the other trades off guard," says Niveau President Paul Comeau. "They started three months before, it took us nine months to catch up and then we had to stop for six weeks while they finished foundations."

"We didn't have the next area prepared for them," adds Trevisan of the framers. "The construction on one of the phases did not start soon enough for them to work straight into it. If they had carte blanche in working on the site, they could catch up to anybody."

Toronto-based Niveau, which is French for "level," employed a crew of only 12 installers and completed the job in just under a year. The framing was completed in March.

"If we had more ready for them, they probably could have done more for us," says Trevisan. "If I had to use lumber, I'd still be there. It went better than what we anticipated. As far as scheduling was concerned, we had no problem."

Scheduling wasn't the only problem-free aspect of the job. "King West Village was a complicated project," says Comeau. "From the info that I know, the supers on the job were impressed about how complicated the project was, how smoothly it went for all trades and how quickly it was done."

Trevisan says plumbers and electricians didn't have to drill through studs or floor joists because they're pre-punched.

As the drywall contractor, the advantage to us is that everything is straight and true," adds Alex Muzzo, president of Marel Contractors. "We're not having to shave and cut like most typical timber situations. In traditional stick framing, a year after the homeowner is in the house, we go in and take care of things like shrinkage and nail cracks and pops. In steel framing there's none of that."

Indeed, Comeau reports no callbacks to date based on structure of the building, a testament to the quality of the system. He insists that pre-engineered wall systems like KML's Genesis panels are not being embraced as readily as they deserve to be.

"It's exactly the same situation as when drywall replaced plaster," Comeau says. "Everyone said drywall's going to be a fad. Now everything's drywall; you can't even find plaster. As far as I'm concerned, this is an industry that's at least 10 years behind the times because people are slow to move."

What made Urbancorp take that leap of faith with KML and its Genesis pre-engineered wall panels? A slick presentation or a hard sell?

Neither, says Trevisan.

"I gave them a shot because they're good friends of mine, and I knew they'd come through for me," he says. "They came through with flying colors. It's only a matter of time before the industry sees that it's a better, more economical way to build a home."