Colorado
Metal buildings for projects across Colorado
Whether you’re planning a horse barn in Elbert County, an acreage shop on the Palmer Divide, an equipment building in Weld County or a lodge in the mountains, the right building starts with understanding your project.
Vantage Buildings helps Colorado customers work through their options, understand the requirements that apply at their address and choose the building system that fits how the building will be used.
What matters when building in Colorado?
In Colorado, snow load and jurisdiction decide more about a building than its size does.
Colorado has no statewide building code for private construction. Each city and county adopts its own, so the code edition, the permit process and even whether a permit is required change from one jurisdiction to the next. Along the Front Range, expect drawings, a permit and inspections. Some rural counties have adopted no building code at all.
Snow load rises with elevation, and the state doesn’t publish one number for it. Building departments set their own design values. ASCE 7 lists a 35 psf ground snow load for Denver and Fort Collins, 45 for Castle Rock, and 75 to 80 in the high mountain towns. Around Colorado Springs, the regional building department uses 43 psf below 7,000 feet and 57 above it. A building priced off a lower-elevation package can come up short for the site it’s going to.
Before we recommend a building, we confirm who has jurisdiction at your address, which design values they use and what the drawings have to show.
Where the recommendation lands in Colorado
Most Front Range projects go through plan review, so the cost of engineering carries real weight in the comparison.
Site-specific engineering runs roughly two dollars a square foot on tubular against about seventy-five cents on cold-formed. On a 40×60 that’s around a $3,000 swing. Where reviewed drawings are the norm, that narrows tubular’s price lead, and on a finished building where the gap was already small it can change what we recommend.
Tubular steel still holds up well. For a machine shed, hay barn or unfinished shop under sixty feet wide, it’s usually still the lowest installed price after engineering, and it handles real snow. We supplied a 50 by 120 tubular outfitter’s lodge in Pagosa Springs, designed around San Juan winters.
A few things move a project onto a different frame. If you’re drywalling the inside, steel truss is the one frame we carry where the framing lands on two-foot centers and mounts flush, so drywall screws straight to it and there’s no wood wall to build inside the steel. That makes it the usual answer for a barndominium or a finished shop. If the outside matters, with overhangs, a soffited eave and gutters, cold-formed steel brings that detail as standard. Past sixty feet wide tubular stops being the answer, and past eighty feet red iron is the only sensible one.
See what a steel building costs for real per-square-foot ranges.
Service area
Colorado communities we serve
From the Denver metro to the Pikes Peak region and Northern Colorado, we work with customers across the state. Select your community below for more about building in your area.
Denver metro
Colorado Springs & the Palmer Divide
Northern Colorado
We also work the rest of the state, including Pueblo, Greeley, Loveland, Longmont, Castle Rock, Grand Junction, Durango and Pagosa Springs, and out across the eastern plains. If your town isn’t listed, call and tell us where you’re building.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions about metal buildings in Colorado
Do I need a permit for a metal building in Colorado?
Usually, but it depends on where you’re building. Colorado leaves building codes to cities and counties. Along the Front Range, cities and counties run building departments and review drawings. In the Pikes Peak region, one office, the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, permits unincorporated El Paso County along with Colorado Springs, Fountain, Monument and several smaller towns.
Some rural counties have adopted no building code at all. Call us with your address and we’ll tell you which situation you’re in before you get attached to a design.
Are farm buildings exempt in Colorado?
Sometimes. State law lets a county exempt buildings used only to shelter farm implements, farm products, livestock or poultry, but it doesn’t require it. Each county decides, and most attach conditions.
El Paso County’s exemption covers structures used solely for agriculture, still applies the electrical, plumbing and mechanical codes, and notes that pole barns aren’t automatically exempt. Arapahoe County requires an application and holds the building to agricultural use for its life. A shop that also stores the family’s vehicles usually won’t qualify.
What snow load will my building be designed for?
The one your building department sets for your elevation. ASCE 7 lists ground snow loads of 30 psf for Greeley, 35 for Denver, Brighton and Fort Collins, 45 for Castle Rock, 55 for Durango, and 75 to 80 for Aspen and Breckenridge.
Some departments publish their own tables. Around Colorado Springs, the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department uses 43 psf below 7,000 feet and 57 at or above it. Douglas County starts at 30 psf below 6,000 feet and adds 5 psf for every 500 feet, reaching 70 psf at 9,500 feet and above, and it doesn’t allow the roof snow load to be reduced below the ground value. We design to the figure your building department uses for your address.
Is generic engineering enough, or do I need site-specific engineering?
Where nobody reviews plans, generic engineering is often accepted. Most Front Range building departments do review drawings, and many want them designed for the snow load and wind speed at the site. Our generic packages are wet-sealed.
Anything regularly occupied by people is Risk Category II wherever it sits, and a lot of generic packages only cover Risk Category I. Site-specific engineering runs roughly two dollars a square foot on tubular against about seventy-five cents on cold-formed, so it’s worth knowing which way your jurisdiction goes before you compare prices.
What do you build in Colorado, and what does it cost?
Mostly shops, horse barns and arenas, equipment and hay storage, acreage garages and barndominiums, plus commercial buildings along the Front Range and lodges and shops in the mountains. What it costs depends on the frame, how finished the building will be, the snow load at your site and whether concrete and erection are counted in the number.
We publish real per-square-foot ranges rather than a teaser price. See what a steel building costs, or call 417-218-8348 and we’ll put an actual number on your building.
Let’s talk about your Colorado project
Whether you have a complete set of plans or are still figuring out what size building you need, tell us what you’re planning and where you’re building.
We’ll check the snow load and permit requirements at your address and help you work out the next steps.