Guide

Structural steel for general contractors, from shop drawings to erection

Most of the structural steel that leaves our Burnaby shop is part of a general contractor's scope. The GC does not need a lecture on what a beam is. What matters to a GC is different: will the shop drawings move through review without churn, will anchor bolts release before the foundation pour, will the steel show up sequenced the way the erector needs it, and will the paperwork be there at closeout. This page walks through how we run a steel package so those answers are yes.

If you are pricing a scope right now, the steel package tender checklist lists exactly what to send us. This page covers what happens after award.

1. Scope confirmation, before any drafting starts

The first week after award is paperwork, and it is worth doing properly. We confirm the scope letter against the drawings: which members are ours, which connections are delegated design, whether misc. metals ride along, and what is excluded. Exclusions in writing at kickoff prevent the classic month-six argument about who owns the loose lintels.

On projects where connection design is delegated to the fabricator's engineer, we confirm the design loads are actually shown on the structural drawings. When they are not, the RFI goes in immediately, that single missing item can stall a submittal for weeks if it is discovered late.

2. Shop drawings and the submittal cycle

Every project runs through detailed shop drawings before steel is cut, every member, every connection plate, every bolt hole. We model in 3D and produce the erection drawings and piece drawings from the same model, so what the erector sees matches what the shop built. You can watch how we build these models in our shop drawings video.

The submittal sequence is deliberate:

• Anchor bolts and embeds first. Foundations run ahead of steel. Anchor bolt layouts go out within the first week so concrete never waits on us.
• Main members next. Beams, columns, and braces, the long-lead material orders hang off this approval.
• Misc. metals last. Stairs, guards, ladders, and support frames follow once the primary structure is locked.

Review cycles with the engineer of record are where steel schedules are won or lost. We track every submittal, respond to review comments in days rather than weeks, and flag anything that affects the critical path in the response itself.

3. Fabrication, what happens in the shop

Fabrication runs at our shop on Douglas Road in Burnaby. Cutting, drilling, fit-up, and welding under C.W.B. supervision to CSA W47.1, with material traceability documented against mill certificates. Standard structural grades, CSA G40.21 350W for beams and columns, ASTM A500 for HSS, are stocked at local service centres, so procurement rarely drives the schedule on typical scopes. Specialty sections and high-strength grades add lead time, and we say so at kickoff, not at delivery.

Finishing follows the spec: shop primer for enclosed steel, hot-dip galvanizing per ASTM A123 for exterior exposure, powder coat or intumescent systems where the architect calls for them. Galvanizing adds roughly a week for the round trip to the galvanizer, which we build into the schedule from day one.

4. Sequencing and erection

Steel that shows up in the wrong order is as bad as steel that shows up late. Before anything ships, we agree an erection sequence with the site: which grid lines go up first, what the crane can reach from where, and which picks are the heavy ones. Loads are bundled and tagged to match that sequence.

Our own crews erect most residential and mid-scale commercial scopes, including mobile crane coordination. On tower crane sites, we work inside the GC's crane schedule. Field connections are bolted or field-welded by the same C.W.B.-qualified crews that run the shop, and the frame is plumbed, aligned, and shimmed before we call it done. Recent examples of this kind of work include the steel stair tower we installed at an Amazon warehouse in Delta and the structural frame for St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Langley.

5. Inspection and closeout

Commercial steel scopes end with paper, and the paper matters. The closeout package includes mill certificates, weld inspection records per the engineer's specification, bolt tension records where the connections require them, and notes on any engineer-approved field deviations. When the building inspector or the owner's rep asks for the documentation, it exists, organized, and it matches what was built.

Why GCs keep coming back

• C.W.B. certification to CSA W47.1, the certification your structural drawings specify. More on the certified welding page.
• Institutional track record, steel and stair scopes connected to BCIT, Simon Fraser University, Surrey Memorial Hospital, Guildford Town Centre, and Interior Health hospitals in Kamloops and Kelowna.
• Award-recognized trade work, VRCA 2021 Awards of Excellence Silver Award for our trade contractor involvement on the Naikoon PH1 project.
• One shop for structural and misc. metals, fewer subs to chase, one submittal stream.

Have a steel scope in tender or about to be awarded? Send the package through the quote request form, or start with the tender checklist to see what we need to price it accurately the first time.

FAQs