Engineered steel framing solutions for Queensland and northern NSW

Three systems, one set of drawings

Our steel framing covers the whole structure of a typical low-rise building. Wall frames are custom-engineered and precision roll-formed from Australian BlueScope TRUECORE® steel. Roof trusses are engineered for the roof shape and span on your plans. Steel floor systems give a strong, level floor on piers or over a subfloor, and suit a range of floor finishes.

You can order one system or the complete frame. Ordering together means walls, roof and floor are detailed from the same drawings, so loads, tie-downs and openings line up.

• Steel wall frames, pre-assembled and labelled to a layout
• Steel roof trusses, engineered for your roof shape and span
• Steel floor systems for suspended and elevated floors
• Complete steel frame kits combining all three

Projects it suits

Light gauge steel framing is used for custom homes, duplexes, townhouse developments, modular homes, commercial buildings, industrial projects and multi-residential developments, and by owner-builders building their own home. Each of those has its own page with what the project type needs from the frame.

What light gauge means

The Australian Steel Institute describes cold-formed, light gauge members as made from steel strip supplied in coil. The strip is uncoiled, slit and formed through a series of roll stages. Cold-rolled coil is typically 0.3 to 3.5 mm thick and metal-coated.

Structural steel, by contrast, is hot-rolled into heavier sections such as universal beams and columns. Both are steel, but they are designed to different standards and do different jobs.

The standards behind it

The ASI names AS/NZS 4600:2018 Cold-formed steel structures as the main design standard for light gauge steel in Australia. For houses, NCC 2022 clause H1D6(3) accepts steel framing designed to the NASH Standard (Part 1 or Part 2), AS 4100 or AS/NZS 4600.

Hot-rolled members used in houses, such as bearers, lintels and columns, have their own provisions in NCC 2022 Housing Provisions Part 6.3. A house frame can use both: light gauge walls and trusses with a hot-rolled beam over a wide opening.

Why builders choose it

The NASH handbook lists the reasons steel framing is chosen: it is dimensionally stable, non-combustible, consistent in its properties, strong for its weight and recyclable. In practice builders talk about straight walls, no sorting of warped studs, and frames that arrive made to the plans.

The NCC treats a primary building element made entirely of steel as not subject to termite attack, which matters across much of Queensland.

What to plan for

Light gauge steel is not a drop-in swap for timber. Metal-framed walls with lightweight cladding need a thermal break under NCC 2022 13.2.5(5), thermal bridging must be allowed for in the energy design, the frame is earthed by the electrician, and trades use fixings suited to steel.

None of this is unusual, but it is easier when the whole team knows early that the frame is steel.

Where it is used in Queensland

Detached homes are the largest use, from simple slab-on-ground houses to two-storey homes with steel upper floors. Duplexes, townhouse rows and low-rise apartments use it for walls and roofs, and modular builders use it for the whole module.

In commercial and industrial buildings light gauge steel is common for internal walls, offices, amenities and light roofs. Large clear-span sheds and warehouses are usually hot-rolled structural steel, which is a different product.

The systems we make

Lockyer Sheds roll-forms wall frames, roof trusses and floor systems at Crowley Vale and supplies them separately or as complete kits. Each system has its own page with what is supplied, what is not, and what we need to quote it.