Environmentally sensitive (or simply "green") steel building practices and techniques have become more important not only for conservation reasons in recent years, but for also for cost savings and tax credits.

New products supporting this philosophy are emerging everywhere throughout the industry, so much so that such a wealth of information can be tedious for a steel building professional to sift through.

One particularly engaging product that is rising in popularity, and changing the way sustainable products are used in the metal building industry as a whole, is the transpired solar collector.

The concept of the transpired solar collector is simple: Perforated metal wall cladding is attached about 4-8 inches from a south-facing wall to a support grid of vertical and horizontal channels.

The system may be applied to a metal building either vertically or horizontally, and over any noncombustible wall substrate - over or around existing openings.

The grid system vertical channels are attached to the existing wall, with the horizontal channels attached to the vertical channels and the perforated metal sheets fastened to the horizontal channels.

The collector wall may be mounted to the wall of a metal building in many different ways, depending on the volume of air required. In some cases, a portion of the wall is needed or even a penthouse wall may be suitable.

The sun heats the metal panel of this environmentally friendly steel building product, and the heated air is then drawn through tiny holes in the panel into a cavity between the panel and wall by fans mounted at the top of the wall.

The fans then distribute the heated air into the building through flexible ducts mounted from the ceiling or through standards ducts connected to the heating and ventilating system.

In winter, heated air removes a major load from the steel building's conventional heating system, saving considerable energy and money.

In the summer, the panel is shading the inner wall, reducing the cooling demands of the building. When heating is not required, a damper may be opened to allow air to bypass the solar collector, providing a supply of fresh air into the building.

The transpired solar collector wall also is effective on cloudy days, if at a reduced level. A transpired solar collector wall may also be mounted to a wall several different ways, depending on the volume of air required.

Methods such as this are already beginning to transform the commercial steel building industry, and as fossil fuels become even more scarce in the decades and centuries to come, expect truly natural resources to be maximized by the steel building companies of the future.