Drive-up storage units
Single-level rows, repeated hundreds of times across a site. Non-combustible, fast to frame, and the format our crews know better than anything else we build.
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Cold-formed steel framing contractor
Stalcup Construction is a commercial metal framing contractor working in cold-formed steel across eight western states. We self-perform the framing on storage facilities, retail interiors and multi-story buildings, from drive-up units to load-bearing walls five floors up.
In short
Storage leads the work.
Stalcup Construction is a commercial metal framing contractor working in cold-formed steel across eight western states. Storage leads the work: drive-up rows, RV bays, climate-controlled and multi-story load-bearing units.
Stalcup crews travel to the job and stay, working inside Procore and Outbuild alongside the other trades. The company has framed commercial steel for fifteen years, up to five stories in Eugene, Oregon.
What cold-formed steel framing is
Three names, one product.
An engineer writes cold-formed steel on a drawing, a superintendent says steel studs on site, and a supplier may say light gauge.
Cold-formed steel framing and steel stud framing are the same thing. So is light gauge framing. Different people on the same job site will use all three names for the same product, and a set of drawings might use a fourth.
It is steel formed cold into studs, track and joists, then assembled into walls, floors and structure. It is non-combustible, strong for its weight, dimensionally stable, and it does not rot or feed anything that eats a building.
The distinction that matters on a job site is gauge. Light gauge framing that holds nothing up is a different product decision from load-bearing cold-formed steel carrying floors above it, even though both get called steel studs in conversation. The drawings will say which one a scope is. If they do not, that is worth resolving before the bid rather than after, because the two do not price anything like each other.
Storage framing, the work we do most
Drive-up, RV, and the format that goes upward.
RV and boat storage
Taller bays and wider spans, most often framed inside a larger steel shell. Door height drives the framing package before anything else on the drawings does.
Multi-story facilities
Load-bearing cold-formed steel carrying the upper floors of an urban infill facility, where the cost of land means the building has to go up rather than out.
Storage is what the crews know best
Unit two hundred goes faster than unit one.
Cold-formed steel and self-storage fit together for reasons that show up on an operator's balance sheet rather than in a brochure.
Steel is non-combustible. On a building holding hundreds of other people's belongings, that is an insurance conversation and a code conversation before it is a preference. Light gauge is fast and repeatable, which matters when a facility is the same unit built three hundred times. And steel does not rot, warp or attract pests in a building that spends most of the year unconditioned and unvisited.
The work behind that is real. We framed a five-story U-Haul storage facility in Eugene, Oregon. We built a seven-figure U-Haul warehouse and storage facility in Ferndale, Washington as general contractor. Our crews are in Utah right now setting nineteen drive-up units.
There is a compounding effect people underestimate. A crew that has framed hundreds of identical storage units is materially faster on unit two hundred than on unit one, and that speed lands in the schedule rather than in a sales pitch. It is the single clearest reason to put a storage specialist on a storage job.
When the units sit inside a steel shell we erect that too. See PEMB steel buildings for the building around the framing.
Load-bearing, non-load-bearing, and hybrid
The Eugene facility, floor by floor.
Knowing where cold-formed steel stops is as useful as knowing what it does.
On the Eugene facility, heavy bolt-together red iron carried floors one and two. Load-bearing cold-formed steel carried three, four and five. That is the logic in one building: red iron takes the load where the load is greatest, cold-formed steel takes over above it, and the hybrid costs less than running red iron the whole way up.
At the other end of the range is non-live-load light gauge, where the framing holds nothing up. It is a metal box, and it is fast and inexpensive precisely because nothing structural depends on it. Both are cold-formed steel framing. Which one a project needs is a structural question, and it should be settled before anyone prices it.
Floor 5Load-bearing cold-formed steel
Floor 4Load-bearing cold-formed steel
Floor 3Load-bearing cold-formed steel
Floor 2Bolt-together red iron
Floor 1Bolt-together red iron
Foundation and slab
Other buildings we frame
Not everything we frame is storage.
Interiors
Retail interiors
Interior steel stud framing on remodels and fit-outs, including the TJ Maxx-format retail work general contractors bring us through ConstructConnect. Fast, repeatable, and done around a live store.
Backup and curtain wall
Exterior wall framing
Non-load-bearing exterior backup walls and curtain wall framing. Cold-formed steel does this on buildings whose primary structure is something else entirely, including concrete and red iron, and it is a scope we take on its own.
Working the schedule
Framing sits in an awkward place in a commercial schedule.
Sequencing
Framing cannot start until the slab and the structure are ready, and almost everything after it waits on the walls being up. Mechanical, electrical and drywall are all standing behind the framing crew.
We work inside Procore and Outbuild on the general contractor's account, and we sequence framing so the trades behind us are not waiting on a wall that is half closed. Fifteen years of commercial work is fifteen years of not being the reason someone else is idle.
How crews reach the job
Framing is labor in a concentrated burst. A crew arrives, the walls go up, and the crew moves on. That only works if the crew is actually there for the duration.
Ours mobilize out of Central Oregon and stay on site through the work rather than commuting to it. Veteran leads who have run jobs of this size come back per project. Crews scale to the framing scope in front of them instead of the scope being trimmed to fit a fixed crew.
What we self-perform
Cold-formed steel framing and PEMB erection are always our own crews. We do not broker framing to another sub and we do not hand it off after the bid. When you put Stalcup on a framing scope, Stalcup crews frame it.
Concrete, groundwork and the other trades get subcontracted on jobs where we are carrying the project as general contractor. We sub the work other companies do better than us, and we are specific about which is which before anyone signs.
What we bring to a framing scope
Four things, and none of them are a promise.
Eight states
Licensed to frame commercial work across eight western states.
In-house
Framing crews are ours and are never brokered to another sub.
Load-bearing
Structural cold-formed steel, proven in the field to five stories.
Fifteen years
Commercial steel framing every year since the company started.
Frequently asked questions
Six about framing.
Is cold-formed steel framing the same as steel stud framing?
Yes. Cold-formed steel framing, steel stud framing and light gauge framing all describe the same product. The name changes with who is talking: an engineer writes cold-formed steel on a drawing, a superintendent says steel studs on site, and a supplier may say light gauge. If you are pricing any of the three, you are pricing the same scope, and it is worth confirming that early so nobody assumes a difference that is not there.
What does cold-formed steel framing cost?
Industry figures for commercial metal stud framing run roughly $9 to $20 per square foot installed, with labor about a quarter to a half of that. Light non-load-bearing partitions sit at the bottom of the range and structural load-bearing walls at the top, and West Coast work typically runs 15 to 25 percent above national figures on labor and freight. Those are industry ranges, not our quote. Your number moves on gauge, wall height, whether the framing is load-bearing, opening count and site access. Send a drawing set and we will price it.
Can cold-formed steel carry structural load?
Yes, within a range that gets set by an engineer rather than by a contractor. Load-bearing cold-formed steel routinely carries the upper floors of mid-rise and multi-story buildings. On the Eugene facility it carried floors three, four and five while heavy red iron carried the two below it. That hybrid is common, and it exists because red iron is the right answer low in the building and an expensive answer higher up.
Why choose steel studs over wood framing?
Steel is non-combustible, dimensionally stable, and it does not rot, warp or attract pests. On commercial buildings, particularly anything holding other people's property, those are usually code and insurance questions rather than preferences. Wood is still cheaper on smaller and lower buildings, and where it is genuinely the better answer we will say so. We frame in steel because most commercial work we see calls for it, not because it is always right.
Who frames the job, your crew or a labor broker?
Our crew. This is worth asking any framing sub and the answer is not always the same one you get in a bid meeting. Stalcup crews self-perform every framing scope we take. We do not broker it to a labor supplier, we do not subcontract it out after award, and the people who show up are the people we hired and trained. The general contractor is buying a crew, not a brokerage.
How do you handle scheduling with other trades?
Through the general contractor's system, whatever it is. Procore and Outbuild are the two we work in most. Practically, framing means sequencing around concrete ahead of us and mechanical, electrical and drywall behind us, and the useful skill is knowing which walls to close and which to leave open so the trades behind are not blocked. That is a conversation we would rather have at the schedule stage than in week three.
Keep going
Send a drawing set and we will price it
Load-bearing cold-formed steel, five floors up in Eugene.
Fifteen years of commercial steel framing across eight states.