150 ft clear span
A hundred and fifty feet is the practical ceiling for a standard single-span rigid frame. Below it you are choosing from what manufacturers already build. Above it you are commissioning something, and the whole character of the purchase changes.
Priced as a 150 × 240 ft building at a 30 ft eave, 25 ft bays, 20 psf ground snow on the ASCE 7-16 basis, 115 mph wind, no crane — a case that matches what actually gets built at this width. Change any of it in the calculator.
Framing steel
8.26 – 11.56 lb/sf
Primary and secondary, 149 – 208 tons total
Building package
$21.98 – $28.57/sf
$791K – $1.03M over 36,000 sf
Installed
$34.07 – $54.29/sf
$1.23M – $1.95M, before interior buildout
Modular would save
14%
About $127K on the package
Outside the usual range. This width prices outside the $14–22/sf band commonly quoted for metal building packages. That band describes ordinary spans; a 150 ft clear span legitimately leaves it, and clamping the figure to look tidy would make it useless exactly where it is most needed. How these figures were derived.
At this span: The practical ceiling for a standard single-span rigid frame. Past this you are buying custom engineering.
The short answer
This is the widest building you can expect fast, competitive, comparable quotes on. If your width is near 150 and flexible, coming down to it rather than going up is worth real money.
Planning-stage estimate calibrated to published industry ranges. Not a substitute for a stamped design by a licensed engineer.
Geometry that follows from the width alone, at this page's 30 ft eave. These are planning rules, stated so they can be argued with — the derivations are on the methodology page.
| Dimension | At 150 ft | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Frame depth at the haunch | 72–90 in | Span/25 to span/20. The deepest point of the frame, at the knee, where the moment peaks. |
| Clear height at the sidewall | 22.5–24 ft | Eave height minus the haunch. The height you can actually use in the first bay in from the wall; clearance rises toward the ridge. |
| Rafter half length | 75 ft | Haunch to ridge. What has to get on a truck. |
| Shipping pieces per half | 2 | Past ordinary haul length, so the half arrives in bolted segments and each splice is a connection to make up in the field. |
| Deflection allowance, L/240 | 7.5 in | Allowable midspan movement with a non-plaster ceiling, per IBC Table 1604.3. The weight model behind this page checks none of it. |
| Engineering | Standard | Inside the 150 ft ceiling for a standard single-span rigid frame. Expect a quick, comparable quote from several bidders. |
Up to about this width a rigid frame is a configuration of something a manufacturer has engineered, fabricated, shipped and had erected many times. That shows up as a quote in days rather than weeks, a lead time driven by mill and shop scheduling, several bidders who all understand the same building, and an erector who has stood one before.
Past 150 ft every one of those weakens. The engineering is project-specific, fewer manufacturers will take it, the ones who do price uncertainty into it, and comparing two bids stops being straightforward because they are no longer bidding quite the same structure.
So if the brief says "about 150 feet", the difference between 148 and 160 is not twelve feet of width. It is the difference between a commodity and a commission.
Framing runs about 8.26 – 11.56 lb/sf, roughly two and a half times the weight per square foot of a 60 ft frame for two and a half times the width — the curve is now steep. The haunch is 72–90 in deep, leaving 22.5–24 ft of clear height at the sidewall under a 30 ft eave, so the sidewall bays are noticeably lower than the middle of the building.
Rafter halves are 75 ft, which means about 2 shipping pieces each and bolted field splices made up on the ground or in the air. Erection is a two-crane job or one large one, and the erector's method starts mattering as much as the steel price.
Crane bays and riding arenas both top out around here in the application profiles, for the same reason from opposite directions: a crane runway wider than this is usually served by two cranes on two runways with a column line between them, and an arena wider than this is beyond any discipline's requirement. Above 150 ft the buildings that stay clear span are hangars and very wide distribution floors.
The modular saving is now 14%, which is where the frame selector stops treating clear span as a live economic option and starts treating it as something you buy for what it makes possible.
The uses whose typical width covers 150 ft, and what drives the geometry in each. A use that does not appear here is not impossible at this width — it is just not where it usually lands.
| Use | Typical width | Typical eave | What sets the geometry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aircraft Hangar | 100–300 ft | 24–60 ft | Door opening and tail height, not floor area. The clear span is set by the widest aircraft plus wingtip clearance. Usually clear span. |
| Crane Bay / Manufacturing | 60–150 ft | 24–45 ft | Hook height drives the eave, and the crane runway loads the frame in a way roof snow never will. Usually clear span. |
| Warehouse / Distribution | 100–400 ft | 28–40 ft | Rack grid and dock count. A column is free if it lands on a rack line, so modular almost always wins. Usually modular. |
| Riding Arena | 60–150 ft | 14–20 ft | A regulation arena floor cannot have columns in it. Width is set by the discipline, not the budget. Usually clear span. |
A modular frame at this width comes in around 14% lower on the building package — roughly $127K on the 36,000 sf building priced above. At that level clear span has stopped being an economic option and become a purchase: you should be able to name what the column-free floor is for.
The frame selector's own recommendation for this case, with interior columns permitted, is a Modular frame with tapered columns. Web-tapered members follow the moment diagram and are the lightest way to carry this span.
Next step
A dealer quoting your actual geometry and load case beats any estimator, including this one. Three of them, each carrying engineer-stamped drawings for your state, cost you nothing to ask.