Metal Sided Shop and cell phone reception?

[Matt Meiser]

At some point in the not so distant future my shop needs to be resided due to failing wood trim boards and brittle vinyl siding. I'm planning to go with the more common two-tone steel siding most people in my area have. I have a shingle roof, but my ceiling is already steel. We are about 2 miles from the nearest Verizon tower and get good reception but I'm wondering how much I can expect to lose? I'm wondering if I need to look at a repeater system?

This is as much for safety as it is convenience as we took our home line to a Verizon Home Phone Connect and that no longer extends the home phone line to my shop.

[Jim Andrew]

My shop has quite a bit of steel, and find myself walking outside when someone calls. I have an all steel shed at the farm, and have to go outside it to use the phone. There is a new tower not yet online close by, maybe it will improve things.

[Harry Simms]

My shop has metal siding and roof. I have no problem with reception inside. I'm not sure exactly how far I am from the tower, but reception is good in the entire area, so it must be nearby. Inside or outside the shop does not seem to matter.

[Tom Clark FL]

In FL at first we were five miles from the Verizon tower, and I had to go outside my steel building to have a decent conversation. When they put a new tower 3/4 mile from us it changed to 4 bars everywhere, and phone worked great inside.

Now we are in NM, 2.5 miles from tower, and have 3-4 bars inside and outside both home and new steel building. Phone works great. We dumped our land line years ago…

[Troy Turner]

Matt -

Not sure how far from a tower we are, but in the house, reception isn't too bad, but it's not great. Out in my shop (pole barn), if I leave the sliding door open, I get pretty decent reception in the shop. However, if it's closed, there's no signal what so ever.

[Steve Milito]

A building fabricated with a conductor bolted to the earth is effectively a Faraday cage and will greatly reduce the magnitude of an electromagnetic field. I'm sure there are examples where the radiation is still adequate to get cell phone reception but I wouldn't count on it.
You also can't expect wireless internet and the like. You may need an external antennae and a repeater; or a hardwired line.

[Matt Meiser]

This would be a wood framed building sided in steel.

[Eric DeSilva]

Can you run broadband to your shop and install a femtocell?

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Ditto the other guys, you will see an effect. We have three metal building on the farm, no phone zones in each. The verizon tower is more like 10 miles away though. The local GSM format provider works better in the buildings though.

[Steve Milito]

This would be a wood framed building sided in steel.
That would make it a poorly built Faraday cage. :D

[Matt Meiser]

Eric, that's another option I'm looking at. I ran fiber from the house to the shop a couple years ago but it sounds like I should wait and see.

[Ed Labadie]

My shop is steel outside and inside but has a shingle roof. Reception isn't bad, depends on the quality of the cell phone, still have to step outside sometimes, at the very least, the phone gets enough signal to ring.

A friends shop is steel outside, inside and the roof. Cell reception is non-existant, phone will not even ring. Both buildings are 3 miles from the same tower.

Ed

[Jim Laumann]

I have a pole frame building (wood), the exterior & interior wall sheathing is steel, as is the roof and ceiling. My cell phone works fine, but my wireless handset for house phone (landline) works only when I stand by a window.

Jim

[Mark Bolton]

My shop is wood frame with steel roof and siding. No cell issues what so ever but Im not quite 2 miles from a tower either. I personally dont think you'll have a problem. We have built several steel sided/roofed structures in semi-remote locations and I have never had issue with reception when working on interior finishes.

I know the range of a cell tower varies greatly depending on terrain, power at the mast, and so on, but 2 miles would seem fine for around here.

[Jim Becker]

Can you run broadband to your shop and install a femtocell?

If you side with steel...."this"....

Are there fiber panels you could use in lieu of the steel? When I'm at the barn where we board our horses, wireless service drops noticeably while in the barn and indoor arena. About the only reason we get any reception is the "clear" plastic panels that allow light in along some of the wall areas. Tower is less than a mile away, too...line of sight, even.

[Mark Bolton]

I wonder if there are other factors at play that effect some steel/steel sided structures and not others. Just for the heck of it I just measured the distance from the tower to my building, .53 miles, clear eye shot and a bit higher. We have no issues what so ever with signal loss or degradation with several users of different phones and providers.

I wonder about the issues Steve brings up with grounding. The steel siding on my building is in contact with the ground in several places but its also an older structure (old fire station) and has antenna masts, gas pipes, and so on protruding through the steel as well that would all provide grounding.

Probably a lot of variables, envelope density, tower type and output power, and so on.

[Craig Coney]

Can you install alot of large windows? The sheet metal may give you significant attenuation.

[Brian Elfert]

My house is sided in seamless steel. No issues with Verizon cell phone, but a house has a lot of windows too.

[Matt Meiser]

There are 2 windows but one faces away from the tower and the other isn't very big. Not real feasible to add more for various interference reasons.

Not really interested in a different finish--I'll just deal with the consequences one way or another

[Dan Hintz]

My house is sided in seamless steel. No issues with Verizon cell phone, but a house has a lot of windows too.

And a roof not made of metal...