Statistics show that newer houses are less likely to burn in wildfires, and one more fire-resistant option than framing with traditional wooden studs is to use steel ones.  

Yet six months following the start of the massive Southern California wildfires and at a time when so many are planning to rebuild, steel prices are up, thanks in large part to a 50% U.S. tariff on steel imports.

All Metal Framing in Orange County, California, plans and fabricates the steel sections to build houses. Michael Ferlaino is the company’s founder and recently spoke with Marketplace’s David Brancaccio. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: One way to take some of the flammable wooden sticks out of rebuilding after a fire is to use what you use: steel. Mr. Ferlani, are you seeing interest in using steel?

Michael Ferlaino: As soon as the fire started, we started having people reach out to us. And in the very beginning, it was primarily structural engineers and architects. And it was due to the homeowners contacting their development teams and looking for a faster, fireproof solution.

Brancaccio: But you're seeing plans now come across your desk for rebuilding residences — single-family residences — using steel.

Ferlaino: Oh, absolutely — all steel framing and all completely panelized.

Brancaccio: So there's a prefab play here, but there's also a fire resistance aspect to this, right? Nothing's fireproof, but steel can be more fire-resistant.

Ferlaino: The studs themselves don't really have a flashpoint, so the only way that you start to see the fires actually expand is if the exterior of the house is wrapped in something that's flammable, or you end up getting so much heat through the studs that you hit the flashpoint of the materials on the inside. But the studs themselves, yeah, they're completely fire resistant.

Brancaccio: Let's talk a little bit about the economics of this. First of all, before the wildfires six months ago, was it cost-effective to build a house using this steel approach?

Ferlaino: Traditionally, steel framing is more expensive than timber framing. On average, in Orange County, it has a tendency to land all in at right around $75 a square foot, where wood traditionally is going to land right around $65 a square foot. The thing that separates us from those numbers is our approach. Because we're manufacturing every stud for where it goes, we don't have waste or droppage. So in traditional framing, you would average anywhere between 10% and 15% material loss, just because sticks are coming in a 10-foot section, the ceiling height is eight feet, so we're cutting two feet off of every piece. Where, for us, we're starting with this 5,000-foot-long coil, and then that's continuously running through the machines, and that's what's giving us every stud. So, because of that, we're at a sub 1% loss, which makes it so we're hypercompetitive with wood.

Brancaccio: It's fascinating. But even now, with all this demand from the fires, and early last month, the import tax on steel doubled to 50%.

Ferlaino: Oh, yeah. No, we've definitely been feeling that. Our last steel order came in in December before the fire started, and we were paying right around 62 to 68 cents a pound, depending on what size we were bringing in and what the quantity was. We're right now paying 91 cents a pound. Fortunately for us, the cost of steel is about 30% of the actual total pricing. So we've seen about a 40% increase in a 30% line item, so it hasn't been too bad.