Steel Carports

Come read our builder stories about tough VersaTube buildings. Read how our product has helped protect businesses and homes from winter's wrath.

Winters up here in Michigan can be long, cold, and brutal. That’s why when warm temperatures finally arrive, people flock outdoors to enjoy the sunshine – at least that’s what I count on as a small business owner who sells recreational boats.

There’s a key to being successful in a business that caters to summertime fun in a region where the season can be so short: have a good inventory on hand from early spring on. Nobody wants to wait on a boat that has to be ordered, they’ll just go right down the road to the next dealer. That means needing a way to protect my boats from the late winter and early spring storms that can form in an instant over Lake Michigan.

Finding carports to cover my inventory wasn’t difficult – I soon discovered that there was a multitude of companies that sold the structures. There were even some right here in my own backyard. Price wasn’t an issue either as I was amazed at the low cost of many of the carports offered by local and national dealers. There was only one problem: the vast majority of the carports I looked at seemed poorly engineered and cheaply built. And with the heavy snows and strong winds we can receive here, that was the one thing I couldn’t afford when the structures were being used to protect my boats — a collapsed carport could ruin my entire year.

I was about to end my search when one of my distributors told me about VersaTube. He had bought a garage from the company and been very impressed with its quality. I was a little apprehensive about calling at first as some companies that normally sell to homeowners will jack up their prices or just make the process difficult when dealing with a small business owner.

Ten minutes into my phone call, I realized that my concerns could be forgotten – VersaTube was a company that sold many commercial buildings to small business owners just like me. In fact, a significant percentage of their buildings every year are manufactured for commercial and agricultural purposes. And the thing I liked most of all: the salesman didn’t just take my order, he treated me as if I was having a custom building designed – which it turned out I was.

He asked me a lot of questions about the sizes of my boats and where the carports would be located and told me the structure that best suited my needs was VersaTube’s Grand Carport. He suggested I start with two of the Grand Carports with each being 40 feet wide. When I expressed a little concern about the width and the amount of snow we can get, he assured me that the carports would be engineered to meet my local snow/wind load requirements as well as all local building codes.

As you can imagine, with all the personalized treatment I was receiving and discovering how well engineered the buildings would be, I was waiting for the deal breaker: the carports would be out of my price range. However, I was pleasantly surprised – they were much less than I expected and while they were more than those poorly engineered carports I had looked at previously, you usually get what you pay for. When it comes to my boats, some of which can be fairly expensive, I wanted a building I was sure could withstand Michigan’s winter storms.

And now that they’re up and everything I had hoped for, there’s one other thing I probably should mention: up here in Michigan we place a lot of importance on buying American. Considering that their buildings are manufactured by Americans using American steel, VersaTube certainly falls into that category.