What Are The Best Colours To Paint Your Steel Building?

One of the best aspects of buying and fitting a kit built steel building is that despite the modular and prefabricated nature of the building, there is also a lot of versatility and scope to customise, and coordinate the building to fit the surrounding area and needs of the business.

These needs are not only practical but also aesthetic, and whilst most discussions surrounding customisation centre around what a temporary steel frame building does, there is also a lot of scope for shaping how it looks as well, with significant practical benefits for doing so.

Whilst steel will typically be galvanised with a zinc in order to protect it from rusting and corrosion, using a metal paint provides an additional level of protection, as well as more specific benefits depending on the type and colour of paint used.

This versatility can lead some businesses and building managers to wonder what colours and shades they should paint their steel buildings in, and there are a lot of different answers depending on your exact priorities.

Dependent On Location

For both practical and aesthetic reasons, the colour to paint your steel building will often be decided by location, at least in terms of the broadest strokes.

At a basic level, because temporary metal buildings have a temperature sensitivity, you will need to factor in the typical weather for the region for as long as the structure is erected.

If you live somewhere that is typically bitterly cold, then a dark-coloured building will help absorb sunlight and keep the building warmer, whilst a lighter shade helps to reflect sunlight, keep the building cool and avoid a greenhouse effect occurring that makes the building uninhabitable.

Beyond the practical points, however, there are aesthetic considerations to take into account, with different paint schemes being more amenable to different locations.

Many steel buildings are used for agriculture, and so steel structures near hills or forests may be painted in earthy tones to better complement the surrounding area and create a sense of aesthetic harmony.

This sense of harmonising with the surroundings can also translate away from nature, with metal structures often painted in the same colours as other buildings on the same land, particularly in industrial estates where there is a strong sense of cohesion.

Brand Identity

Metal offers a lot of scope for expression with bolder colours, so a metal building can be effectively used for brand identity. By painting the structure in the primary colours of the brand it creates a stark visual image, one strong enough to potentially even be used in marketing.

This is doubly effective given the inherently industrial aesthetic of a lot of metal structures, where the corrugated style many steel buildings have to add strength creates a desirable industrial 

aesthetic currently in vogue even beyond commercial structures.

Past Experience

If there is a building colour you like, then a steel building is likely to look fantastic with it. Look at buildings you already have or exemplar buildings that fit the style and colour scheme you want, and explore what you think works and what does not work with that colour.

There are thousands upon thousands of possible colour options, so little tweaks are very possible to make your building perfect and personal.