The bad news is that steel prices have rocketed over recent months:

Construction Enquirer reports these recent rises in the raw material cost: July +£30; August +£30; Nov +£40, Dec +£80; Jan +£50; March +£30; May +£50; May +£100.  Structural steel base cost is now reported to be over £1000 a tonne compared with £460 just a year ago.

The good news is that we may be able to halve – yes,  halve – the steel you have committed to budget for!

We have a long list of examples where we have saved up to 62½% of the steel on large sheds and framed buildings, mostly through diligent design refinement and occasionally by reconfiguring the concept design.  In all cases we have met (and most often exceeded) the developer’s criteria.  We don’t do value Engineering by clipping the specification; just by having a good instinct for beneficial details, an understanding of fabrication workshop practise, and the high cost items.  The time taken to redesign should be short enough that the reduced steel throughput will also save on the overall programme.  For instance the warehouse featured on our website was redesigned after the foundations were formed and the building was occupied 2 months ahead of schedule.  Factory buildings for Proctor and Gamble in Asia were completed in half the ‘normal’ time.

Try us.  If there is worthwhile money and time to be saved, after deducting our fees, we will let you know when we review the design that you send us.

(see our Value Engineering page)