Steel Construction Vol 40 No 1 - Architecturally Exposed Steel | Page 26

SAISC SUBSIDIARIES: SASFA

ANNUAL REVIEW
OF LSFB ACTIVITY DURING 2015

By John Barnard, SASFA Director

www.sasfa.co.za

BELOW RIGHT AND NEXT PAGE: LSFB is
increasingly being used for external (and internal)
walling of multi-storey office and commercial
buildings

Building industry statistics (Statistics
South Africa)

Light steel frame building
performance

The floor area of all buildings completed in
South Africa during 2014/15, including
additions and alterations, is reported to be
9.2 million square metres – showing a
decline of 8% compared with the
performance of the previous year. New
residential buildings (including
alterations) made up 68% of the area of all
buildings completed. The largest sector in
the residential market was dwellings of
more than 80m², followed by flats and
townhouses.

SASFA’s annual survey, which aims at
quantifying the level of light steel frame
building (LSFB) activity in the market, was
carried out during December 2015. As in
the past, SASFA approached the South
African manufacturers of light steel
framing to determine the volume of thin
gauge high strength galvanized steel sheet
they had processed during the past year,
as a measure of the building activity in
the industry.

A significant 17% of all buildings
(residential and non-residential) completed,
comprised of ‘additions and alterations’.
Industrial buildings and warehousing
formed the major sector in the nonresidential market, with 45% of the
floor area, followed by office and bank
buildings (26%).

The total LSF market (local
and export, trusses and
complete buildings) is
forecast by the
manufacturers to grow by
more than 10%
during 2016, compared
with 2015. The SASFA
manufacturing members
report good demand
for middle and upper
income housing, schools
and classrooms, and
roofing structures for low
cost housing projects.

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Steel Construction Vol. 40 No. 1 2016

Based on building plans approved, we can
look forward to a 11% growth in
residential building activity during the
next 12 to 18 months, unfortunately
offset by a 12% decline in non-residential
building, keeping in mind that there is a
lag of some 9 months between plans
approved and buildings completed.

The manufacturers reported throughput
of 21 500 tons of high strength galvanized
steel sheet, reflecting 14% growth
compared with production in the
previous year. Supply into the local
market increased by 13%, while exports
from South Africa into Sub-Saharan Africa
grew by 20%.
Some 50% of LSF was supplied into the
residential market, with 30% going to
office, industrial and commercial
buildings and 20% to schools, hospitals,
clinics and other community buildings.
During 2015, 66% of locally sold LSF was
used for roof trusses for buildings with
masonry walls or in industrial buildings.
Roof structures covering a total floor area