There's a moment on almost every steel construction project where two worlds have to meet: the world of calculations and the world of cutting. On one side, a structural engineer who has spent weeks working out exactly what a building needs to stay standing. On the other, a steel fabricator who has to turn that...

The assumption most people bring to steel beam pricing is straightforward: a bigger beam costs more than a smaller one. This is true in the narrowest sense — a heavier section has more steel in it and steel is priced by weight, so the raw material cost of a larger section is higher. But raw material cost is rarely...

A steel beam does not work in isolation. It receives load from one material, transfers it to another, deflects under that load, expands and contracts with temperature, and sits within a structure made of materials that each have their own stiffness, their own thermal behaviour, and their own response to moisture....

Steel is incombustible. It does not burn, it does not contribute to fire load, and it will not ignite. These facts lead a significant number of builders to assume that steel beams do not require fire protection. That assumption is wrong, and in certain situations it is dangerously so. The problem is not...

Terraced houses with no side access. Semi-detached properties where the gap between buildings is barely a metre wide. Victorian townhouses with a ground floor plan that means any beam going into the rear extension has to travel through the house. A rear kitchen knock-through where the only route from the street to...