Publication Date: Friday, March 19, 2004

Building with steel

Pleasanton's first two steel-structured homes are under construction on Kottinger Drive, and they are quite a site to behold.

Considered the city's best environmentally-friendly home building project ever, the shiny glazed steel girders are still visible on the steep hillside where the homes are being built. They are made from 100 percent recycled steel scrap that might otherwise have ended up in landfill.

"What you see is steel that was probably recycled from old cars that will now provide the structural support for the two homes that we are building," said Bob Walsh, who with his construction partner Jeff Lowe are erecting the houses at 457 and 459 Kottinger. "These homes will last forever."

Both men, friends since middle school in Fremont, plan to move their families into the new homes later this summer.

"We grew up together, formed a partnership that has been successful over the years, and our wives and our children have also become close friends," Lowe said. "We also like Pleasanton and saw the opportunity to build on these lots, so we chose to move here ourselves."

Walsh, who started in general construction work after completing his education, became interested in steel framing when a friend told him about its advantages eight years ago. Since then, he and Lowe have built a number of steel homes, including a group of seven in Santa Clara.

"Steel is really a unique and ideal way to go," Walsh said. "We like it because it's strong, there's no warping and no one who lives in a steel-structured house ever has to worry about termites."

Walsh doesn't have an exact figure yet on how much steel he'll be using by the time he completes the Kottinger Road project, but it will be substantial. Both houses are nearly identical, with 3,400 square feet of floor space. Because they are built close together on a 2 acre hillside site below a city water tank, they are being constructed on foundations strengthened by 100 steel piers that were driven down 14 feet for one house, and another 100 piers driven into the ground almost 20 feet for the other. In addition, the builders poured concrete about 14 feet thick to complete the foundations.

Lightweight steel framing rises another 25 feet or so above the foundations, with steel floor joists to support wood flooring. Each home is two stories tall with four bedrooms and three baths. Three-car garages in each open to a common driveway, with laundry rooms, a living room and office or den on the first floor, and the main living area on the second. High above Kottinger, the view across Pleasanton is spectacular.

The back of the first floors of each home are built into the hillside, with those walls also serving as steel and concrete retention walls. They were formed using Styrofoam framing, with steel piers in between, followed by poured concrete. Drains criss-cross the hillside as it heads up to the water tank, so that all drainage that used to run uncontrolled into Kottinger from that hill now corralled into pipes that move the water to specific drains on the street.

In addition to their determination to build environmental-friendly steel houses, Walsh and Lowe also worked to become friends with their neighbors. Over the last 10 years, several developers have eyed the 2 acre site, with one proposal for seven homes being rejected by the city Planning Commission after neighbors objected to the crowding.

"When we took on this project, we heard about the earlier complaints and decided to start with those neighbors," Walsh said. "After all, we planned to live in these homes, so they would some day be our neighbors, too. When they said could accept two homes, but no more, we bought into the plan. It's been smooth sailing ever since."

Lowe said that although steel construction is new for Pleasanton, it's become popular in Florida and Hawaii, places whether there are major termite problems and also heavy windstorms and even hurricanes. Steel-built homes now account for 30 percent of the new homebuilding market in Hawaii because of termites.

"Another advantage of steel is that it is perfectly straight," Lowe said. "When you look down the wall in any room, you don't see any waving like you would in a wood-framed house. It's totally flat."