Well I built my whole house out of steel so I would agree. It gives you significant design flexibility for wide open spaces.

Either one will provide whatever you want; both have to be engineered.

Even my current 1970's era tract house has a steel beam in the basement with three posts along it's 44' span. On the upper floors, a more traditional bearing wall sits right on top of that beam.

I've got steel in my house under construction where it makes sense, LVL in others.

I had a client who paid a premium for beams that would clear span a large basement because she thought posts would be in her way. Years later I saw the basement and it was a sea of junk just like my basement.

We did steel to avoid posts for the basement - we are hoping to finish in a few years because we'll need the square footage. As long as your plan is to actually finish the basement for livable space I think it would be worth the extra cost (and it's A LOT, I don't know specifics, but in this market steel is pricey).

If you have that good of a friend - it's a no brainer ! An open concept basement
is certainly more attractive to home buyers than one with posts all over the
place . I agree with mightyanvil though - the basement of my last house was a
sea of junk , too . That's why I built on a crawl this time . LOL

We have several steel beams in our house. We did add one longer one just before breaking ground (over 20 ft long and 12" wide) to eliminate the need for posts and a sofit. Our added cost for the beam and the labor was a few thousand dollars. It has opened up an area about 6" wide that would have felt like a hallway with the post in there, so for us it was worth it. We did have ceiling issues with 2 out of the 3 areas that had longer/larger beams. In our case, the beam sat lower than the rest of the trusses (partly due to the joists). Make sure the sheetrockers handle that correctly. We had lots of shadowing and the ceiling needed to be repaired.

Steel is expensive, and right now lumber is really cheap.

You might want to look into engineered wood beams. They have the benefit of large spans without the hassle and expense of steel.

We decided to save $$$ by going with larger wood ceiling joists and got less than what I wanted. The 2nd floor over that area flexed so we asked the framer to put in some bracing to minimize the flex.

It worked ok, but in the next house I build I will find the extra money to put in the engineered wood beams.

With the engineered wood beams everything works just like it would if you used regular dimensional lumber.

One thing you need to consider when looking at steel is the fact that it will restrict the location and routing of your electrial, plumbing and HVAC systems.

Its not a good idea to cut through the web of a steel beam or a wood beam, but a wood beam is more forgiving. Stresses set up in the steel beam and multiple flexing over time can result in stress fractures and possible failure.

Plus the steel is just hard enough to deal with where your contractor will ding you a little in the wallet for having to mess with them.

"Steel is expensive, and right now lumber is really cheap"

Except when the steel's free, which the OP says will probably be the case.

I can't remember when I've seen anything but steel in a new home basements around here. I always have several W10s in the basement. I can't imagine how much wood you'd need to carry the same load.

mairin

I'd be curious to see why the architect/designer specified so many I-Beams over a span that could easily be handled by 2x10s unless there is some unusual load above.

worthy: no idea!! hmmm, my DH is the engineer while I am a psychologist. I don't imagine there is a great deal of load since it's not as if it's a huge house. the only thing I can think is that it was to support the open floor plan for basement and 1st floor? Good question, as we paid a lot for steel!