What to consider When Buying a Metal Carport / RV Carport

Type of Vehicle

First and foremost, think of the vehicles that you’ll be keeping in your carport. Is it car, truck, RV, trailer, boat, tractor, motorcycle, or any other vehicle that you own? Do you have one vehicle or multiple vehicles to store in this carport? Finding answers to these questions is what’s going to give you an idea about the ideal size of carport that would suffice for your vehicle needs. Millennium Buildings provides carports for single car or 2 cars, as you require. Our carports can be custom built if you want to store multiple vehicles, or if you want the carport to be taller to accommodate vehicles like tractors and trucks.

Intended Location for Carport

Decide where you would want your carport to be installed. For example, you may want it to be installed adjacent to or near your house so that you can have eyes on your vehicle all the time. The space you allocate to carport installation should be big enough for starters; our team will need this space to carry out the installation of your carport or RV carport efficiently. The intended space for installation should be easy to access by our team. Plus it should also feature a level surface to allow for customized metal carport installation. Make sure your intended carport space meets all of these criteria.

Need for Certification

Some local building regulations require certification and approval of metal carports at the time of installation to ensure that the carport stands robust against particular threshold of snow and wind. As part of this certification process, a local inspector assesses the carport installation site and the structure design plans and determines if everything’s good to go. Check with your local regulations to see if such an inspection requirement is applicable for your carport installation. In case you do need to get your carport certified, you can reach out to our customer services team to understand how we can help you and all the necessary measures that you would have to take.

Weather Evaluation

Your carport should be more than just a structure to keep away the sun and the rain. Take into account the local weather conditions as you plan the construction of your custom metal carport. Does your area receive heavy rain, snowfall or extreme wind during some parts of the year? If that is so, you’re going to need a carport structure that can withstand those rare but tough weather conditions as well. Depending on your area’s weather conditions, anchoring structures in concrete or enclosed structures may do the trick.

Style Selection

Last but not the least, there comes the style and design of your carport. The advantage of building a custom carport is that you get to choose the final look of your carport, in terms of colors options and roof types. Having this freedom can be very important, especially if your carport is going to be an extension of your home. In that case, you want the carport and home to complement each other. Give us a call to know about the various metal carport/RV carport styles that we offer.

Steel Gauge Framing

You have two key options available for choosing the steel gauge framing for your custom metal carport or RV carport: 12-gauge steel framing and 14-gauge steel framing. While both have good structural strength that ensures safety, one can be a better option than the other based on your needs. For your information, all gauge options offered by Millennium Buildings can be certified.

14-Gauge Steel Framing
An economical choice, which is also the industry standard in steel frame thickness and is quite commonly used in carports. The diameter of this gauge framing is 2 ½” x 2 ½”.

12-Gauge Steel Framing
Because this steel framing has a lower gauge number, it is thicker, stronger, and has better wind and snow load ratings. The diameter of this gauge framing is 2 ¼” x 2 ¼”. You should use the 12-gauge steel framing if winds and snowfall can get quite extreme in your area. This framing is also recommended option for carports with height 10′ or more. Millennium Buildings does offer extended warranty with 12-gauge steel framing.

Certification Considerations

To be in compliance with the local building regulations, one of the most important things that you should do is see if you need to get your carport building inspected and certified by a professional engineer/inspector. The requirement for certification varies from state to state. In states where extreme wind, rain, and snowfall aren’t a problem, building certification may not be necessary. In some states certification is required for all newly built structures. In some states the certification requirement may exist only for the structures in which people will be living or working in.

As you can see, the need for building certification isn’t the same everywhere. If the weather conditions in particular states can get nasty, those states can enforce certification requirement to ensure that the constructed structure adheres to proper specifications and applicable building requirements, possesses the right snow and wind load ratings and serves as a safe space for the public. Confirm with your local departments if there’s any certification that you need to acquire for your carport installation. Let us know so that we can assist you in the carport preparation and installation accordingly and also provide you with the building blueprints that you can show to the inspection team for review.

A few important things that you need to ensure before the installation work can begin, leveling the ground on which the metal carport/RV carport has to be installed and keeping the poured slab wide enough for ensuring robust support to the building.