Vulcraft: products, competitors, and the EPD picture

Who Vulcraft is and what they sell

Vulcraft, part of Nucor, manufactures open‑web steel joists and joist girders, steel roof and floor deck, and steel bar grating. They also provide bridging, accessories, detailing support, and Verco deck coverage in the western U.S. Their core markets span warehouses, healthcare, education, data centers, offices, and industrial facilities.

Product lineup at a glance

Across three primary categories, Vulcraft offers many profile types, thicknesses, and coatings. Think joists in K, LH, DLH, CJ series, plus joist girders. Deck in roof, non‑composite form, and composite variants with acoustic options. Grating in standard duty, heavy duty, and stair treads. The combination count is in the hundreds when you consider profiles, gauges, spans, finishes, and coatings. That breadth means spec opportunities across almost every building type.

EPD coverage today

Vulcraft points to Nucor’s product‑specific EPDs for open‑web steel joists and joist girders plus steel roof and floor deck, available from their sustainability page (Vulcraft, 2025). Those documents are verified by third‑party program operators and align to the North American PCR for designated steel construction products, now on its third version in 2025, which tightened consistency across steel EPDs (AISI, 2025). For context, the industry also relies on group resources such as the Steel Joist Institute’s joist EPD and the Steel Deck Institute’s deck EPD for baseline comparisons (SJI, 2025; SDI, 2022).

Vulcraft sustainability hub (Vulcraft, 2025).
AISI PCR v3 announcement (AISI, 2025).
SJI EPD overview (SJI, 2025).

Strengths worth noting

The joist and deck families are covered with product‑specific EPDs, which is what many owners and LEED v5‑minded design teams prefer when they can get it. Industry guidance keeps improving, which helps apples‑to‑apples reads across competitor documents and reduces confusion at bid time (AISI, 2025). Also, Nucor routinely communicates how to specify lower‑GWP steel and EPD requirements in project specs, which makes it easier for AEC teams to ask for the right thing up front (Nucor, 2025).

The likely gap: steel bar grating

We could not locate a publicly available, product‑specific EPD for Vulcraft’s steel bar grating. Grating shows up everywhere in industrial, energy, water, and infrastructure jobs, and procurement teams increasingly ask for EPDs even outside core structure. In those situations, submittals without an EPD can trigger a documentation penalty or substitution pressure, especially where owner policies or state rules reference EPDs for building products (UL Solutions, 2025). That is avoidable.

What this means commercially

Where EPDs are present, Vulcraft products are easier to keep in spec across public work and enterprise programs that score embodied‑carbon disclosures. Where an EPD is missing, buyers may default to industry averages or push toward an alternative with a published document. That shifts attention from performance and availability to paperwork. On a complex job, losing even one category like grating can snowball into more value‑engineering than anyone wanted.

Competitors you’ll see on the same plans

Vulcraft regularly meets New Millennium Building Systems on joists and deck, and Canam on deck and structural alternatives. In some regions, ASC Steel Deck and Epic Metals show up on decking packages. Many of these players publish product‑specific EPDs for core lines or at minimum rely on the SJI and SDI industry‑average documents that specifiers accept as a baseline in early design (SJI, 2025; SDI, 2022). If a best‑seller in one category lacks an EPD while a rival lists one, the rival gets the easy path to “meets requirements.” It’s not fair, but it’s how submittals move.

A quick note on recycled content and why it matters to bids

Steel’s recycling story remains a credible differentiator in carbon‑conscious bids. SJI reports that more than 85 percent of steel used in North American joist production is recycled, which is one reason joist EPDs benchmark well versus many alternatives (SJI, 2025). Nucor communicates average recycled content for Vulcraft products on its site, helping teams satisfy owner reporting templates that still ask for recycled content line items alongside EPDs (Vulcraft, 2025).

If we were prioritizing next steps

• Keep joist and deck EPDs front‑and‑center in sales enablement, with one‑page summaries and clear file names for submittals.
• Commission a product‑specific EPD for steel bar grating. That closes the most visible gap and protects industrial and infrastructure share where documentation is strict.
• Align all new and renewal work to the current PCR version and plan renewal windows so nothing goes dark during peak bid seasons (AISI, 2025).
• Choose an LCA partner who handles data wrangling across mills, coatings, and fabrication and who coordinates directly with the program operator. That is the only way schedules stay tight without overloading plant and PM teams.

The bottom line

Vulcraft is well covered on the joist and deck workhorses that drive most revenue. Grating is the obvious EPD opportunity to make the portfolio feel complete in submittals. Closing that gap keeps the conversation on engineering, price, and delivery, not on whether a form is missing. It’s a small lift compared to the specs it can help win, and it’s definately one of those moves that pays for itself with a single mid‑size industrial platform package.