Craft Quantities
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Structural steel calculators

Steel is sold by weight and erected by the piece, and the two views rarely agree in an estimate. A tonnage tells you what arrives on the lorry; it says nothing about the number of lifts, the connections between them, or the bolts that hold a frame up — which is where the hours are.

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How structural steel is measured

Kilograms per metre for sections, kilograms per square metre for plate, and counts for everything that fastens. A connection is priced by its complexity rather than its weight: two ends of a beam can hold more work than the beam.

What gets left off a structural steel order

  • Fittings: cleats, stiffeners, fin plates and packs are part of the fabricated weight and are routinely left out of a take-off from a frame drawing.
  • Protective treatment, measured on surface area rather than weight — a light section has far more area per tonne than a heavy one.
  • Holding-down bolts, their tolerance and the grout under the baseplate, which belong to the concrete programme and to the steel order at once.
  • Fire protection to steelwork, which is measured on the exposed perimeter and depends on the section factor rather than on the member's size.

Comparisons4

Two ways of doing the same work, weighed against each other.

Planners1

Work this trade out from a space rather than from a job.