A cold rolled mezzanine refers to the method of bending sheet metal into C-channel to use as the understructure of the mezzanine floor. These cold-rolled pieces attach to the tubular steel or tapered columns and provide the “beams" that support the floor. Cold rolled has two major benefits over structural steel mezzanines.
First, the material is much lighter than structural steel and therefore less expensive to ship. This usually means there is also less equipment needed to erect the structure on site.
Second, cold-rolled steel can be pre-galvanized; offering substantial savings over hot-dipped galvanized, stainless steel, or aluminum mezzanines. A disadvantage of cold-rolled steel mezzanine systems is the very limited column spacing (usually 10' - 15' max). They are also unable to reach the high live loads or heavily concentrated point loads that can be accomplished with structural steel mezzanine systems.