Every Butler building project begins with the foundation. A properly engineered foundation anchors your Butler building to the site, transfers structural loads safely into the ground, and ensures your building performs exactly as designed for decades to come. Get the foundation engineering right with Butler Metal Building Foundation Engineering from the start and your Butler building will stand strong through decades of commercial and industrial service. Get it wrong and the consequences are costly, dangerous and sometimes irreversible.

Your building manufacturer provides engineering drawings showing exact anchor bolt locations, load reactions at each column and specific foundation requirements. The anchor bolt plan forms the critical connection between the foundation and the building. For Butler buildings this means every foundation must be engineered specifically for the column loads, anchor bolt layout and base angle dimensions of the Butler building system being installed — not adapted from a generic concrete specification that was not designed for your specific building.

All metal buildings require some type of concrete foundation for the building to be anchored to. The type of foundation is dictated by the loading on the building columns and the soils at the site. Selecting the wrong foundation type, undersizing the concrete, mislocating the anchor bolts or skipping the soils investigation are the most common and most expensive mistakes made on Butler building projects. A properly engineered foundation eliminates all of these risks before a single cubic yard of concrete is poured.

The foundation is the only component of your Butler building that cannot be replaced, upgraded or repaired without demolishing the structure above it. Every investment you make in proper foundation engineering, quality soils investigation, precise anchor bolt installation and correct concrete placement protects every other investment in your Butler building project from the structural frame and roof system to the interior improvements and equipment that will operate inside the facility for decades.

The strength and safety of a steel building depend upon a solid foundation with perfectly aligned connections. If either the foundation or the connecting bolts are compromised the entire structure is less stable. The precise nature of a steel building allows no room for foundation errors or issues with the concrete anchoring system. Blunders made in the placement or quality of foundation anchors are not only costly but can actually be deadly. Improperly poured foundations and shoddily installed connections may lead to compromised buildings or even structural collapse.

Do your Butler building foundation right the first time and it will serve your building reliably for the full service life of the structure. Compromise the foundation and no amount of premium Butler panels, roof systems or building accessories will compensate for what was lost at the ground level.