Main reason against prefab steel?

I've been reading some of the older posts on this subject and it would seem that the main reason to avoid prefab steel buildings is the fact that the outer wall is just a thin sheet, thus making isolation from the outside world a hassle. Is this the only drawback? Sound transmission in my case wouldn't be a problem. I live in a relatively quiet rural area. No close neighbors, good distance from the road... As long as I properly treated the ceiling to allow for noise created by rain, is there any reason that this style of building wouldn't work? I'm trying to find another reason other than isolation, but that seems to be the main point.

How close is your nearest neighbor, how close is the road, and what kind of traffic travels on it (types of vehicles? Harley Davidsons? Semi trucks?) and how often do these vehicles go by? --Keith :mrgreen:

Sorry, I know specifics are valued highly here. The closest house (other than my own, which doesn't count) to this building will be about 100-120 yards away. It's about the same distance to the road. Perhaps slightly closer. The traffic on the road is varied and does indeed include all of the vehicles you mentioned and more. It's a rural road though, so I don't get semi trucks by very often. There's a rock quarry about 2 miles from the house so I do get the occasional dump truck, but I don't find that they are very noisy. Hope that helps, John

OK, that helps. I'm not the one with all the answers, but I do sometimes have questions that help the real answer givers get the data they need to provide meaningful feedback. :) --Keith :mrgreen:

If you were to use the steel as outer leaf, strap unfaced fiberglass insulation against it for damping, then move in 2 feet, do a 2x4 frame and put two layers of 5/8 gypsum wallboard on ONE SIDE of the frame and insulate that the same way, you should get over STC 50 IF, and I do mean IF, both of these walls are hermetically SEALED. If you can't do that, I'd put a wall as close to the steel as possible, then a second one inward by at least a foot, and use extra wallboard layers to help compensate for the extra leaf... Steve