Local Materials for the New Southern Home - Part 2
For those who missed Part 1 of this Local Materials series, this is a follow-up to a February post "Can Southern Homes be Green?"which discusses the availability of construction materials that are manufactured, harvested, extracted or recovered within 100 miles of Birmingham. Let's look at steel, wood and roofing.
•· I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that steel is produced in Alabama, especially in and near Birmingham. In fact, almost anything you want made from steel can be produced by the 239 fabricators in Birmingham. Among the local producers, US Steel produces sheet steel and pipe, ACIPCO, McWane and many others produce steel pipe, O'Neal Steel produces structural steel, ThyssenKrupp produces stainless steel, and Hanna Steel produces pre-painted sheet steel (used to make roofing and siding). One of the largest producers, NuCor Steel, adds an environmental twist.
Using recycled steel, they produce bars, steel slabs, bar joists, sheet steel, rolled sheets and other steel products- all in Alabama. You may not think of using steel in a Southern Home, but you'd be surprised how many steel beams, pipe columns, metal decks, and metal roofs I spec!
•· And if you follow Alabama's economic history, you won't be surprised that timber production is big in Alabama. In 2005, there were 23 million acres of timberland in Alabama- 2nd largest in the US. It's a 
$15 billion industry in the state, directly employing 48,000 Alabamians plus another 100,000 indirectly (like in home building). For more information, you may want to look at this Alabama Forestry Industry report. In Alabama, lumber is made into dimensional lumber - like 2x4's (among them, the T. R. Miller Mill in Brewton), Engineered Lumber - like LVLs and TrusJoists (Georgia Pacific in Thorsby), panel products - like plywood and OSB (Norco in Lanett, Temple-Inland in Monroeville, and Weyerhaeuser in several locations), and beautiful laminated timbers (Structural Wood Systems )in Greenville. One really interesting product is provided by River Bottom Pine in Birmingham. They recycle wood in a number of ways, including century old logs reclaimed from the bottoms of rivers and lakes, turning it into flooring and architectural woodwork.
•· The majority of homes in the South have asphalt shingle roofs. Luckily, GAF-Elk Shingles are made in Tuscaloosa. And if you're wondering what that new roof will look like, check this out!
•· On Southern Homes, one popular upgrade is a metal roof such as the roof on the home above - or the roof over the porch on the home below. As one would expect, there are several local manufacturers, including BMP Metal Products in Bessemer, Central States Manufacturing and Valley View Tubular Products in Fort Payne.
•· Roofing felts 
- which are the real water repelling part of a roof system - are manufactured in Butler by Tamko Building Products.
As you can see, there is a vast collection of local materials available to use when building your new Southern Home. So, if you want to be "green", the opportunity is definitely there. All those choices CAN make the process overwhelming though and that's where my years of experience in Designing Southern Homes can help. I'll begin with your hopes and dreams and design a Southern Home Plan that you can be proud to call home. Contact me today and let's get started.
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