Steel Building Enquiry Checklist: What to Send Before Design

Oct . 21, 2026 10:50 Back to list

What to Send Us Before We Can Design: A Steel Building Enquiry Checklist

Most steel building enquiries stall for the same reason: four numbers are missing. Not price and not lead time — span, clear height, site location and what the building has to do. Send those four plus a sketch and a first structural concept can be prepared in one pass. This page is the checklist we use internally, and none of it is commercial.

Most steel building enquiries stall for the same reason: four numbers are missing. Not price, not lead time — span, eave height, location and what the building has to do. Send those four and a drawing if you have one, and a first structural proposal can be prepared in one pass instead of three.

This page is the checklist we use internally. Nothing here is commercial; it is the minimum set of facts that turns an enquiry into a design.

What to Send Us Before We Can Design: A Steel Building Enquiry Checklist — The minimum set: six items, matching the table below.

The minimum set — six items

#	Item	What we need	Why it changes the design
1	Function	What happens inside: storage, production, cold room, workshop with cranes, bulk material	Drives loads, clear height, floor class and whether the structure can sit inside or outside the envelope
2	Plan size	Length × width in metres (and feet if that is how your drawing is dimensioned)	Sets the bay layout and whether a clear span is possible without internal columns
3	Clear height	Height from finished floor to the lowest steel, in metres	Sets eave height, and for cranes, the rail height and hook clearance
4	Location	Town or region, plus the governing local code	Wind and snow loads are calculated to the applicable code at the project site — we do not apply a default
5	Roof and wall intent	Insulated panels, single skin, or a mix; any future photovoltaic provision	Determines purlin spacing, panel fixing and the additional load allowance
6	Openings	Door and window positions and sizes; number of vehicle movements per day	Openings interrupt the frame line; door count drives moisture and traffic loads

A hand sketch with these six written on it is enough to start. A CAD file is better, but a missing CAD file is not a reason to wait.

The next layer — what makes the design accurate rather than approximate

Send these when they exist; they shorten the design cycle rather than change the concept:

Site constraints — boundary setbacks, existing structures, access for trucks and cranes.
Ground information — any soil report; whether the slab already exists.
Crane data — capacity in tonnes, span, duty class, and whether it is a single or double girder.
Mezzanine or internal platform — occupancy and load per square metre.
Services — sprinkler provision, rain water disposal, any process pipework crossing the envelope.
Corrosion environment — coastal, inland, or a washdown regime; this decides whether the protection is hot-dip galvanizing or a coating system selected for the project environment.

What we will not guess

Stating this explicitly saves a round of emails:

We will not assume a wind speed. The design wind pressure is calculated from the project location and its governing code. If you do not know it, tell us the town and we will establish the value before sizing the frame.
We will not size a structure from a photograph. A photograph tells us the building type; it does not tell us the span.
We will not quote before the function is known. A 1,200 m² (12,900 sq ft) store and a 1,200 m² workshop with two overhead cranes are different structures with the same footprint.
We do not publish prices, and we will not estimate a range from a description. Cost follows the design, and the design follows the six items above.

Which channel to use

Different questions belong in different channels, and using the right one is the fastest route:

Your situation	Use	Why
A technical question about a drawing you already have	WhatsApp	Short exchange, often with a photo of the detail
You have drawings, a BOQ or a specification to send	Email	Files survive better, and they stay with the project record
You are preparing a tender or need company documents	Email, with the tender reference	Documents and references need to be traceable
You want to know whether a span or height is feasible	WhatsApp, with the four numbers	Feasibility is usually a two-message answer

A worked example

An enquiry that arrived as: "We need a warehouse, about 1,500 square metres" — three rounds of emails later it became: "Frozen goods distribution, 60 m × 25 m (197 ft × 82 ft), 9 m (29.5 ft) clear, two dock doors and one personnel door, coastal site, insulated panels, future solar." The second version can be engineered. The first cannot.

The difference between the two was six lines and one sketch.

What happens after you send it

We confirm the parameters and flag anything that reads ambiguously — usually one email.
Loads are established for the site, and a structural concept with bay layout and member sizes follows.
The concept is issued for your review with the drawing set and a bill of quantities.
Only then does the commercial discussion start.

FAQ

How long does a first proposal take?

It depends on how complete the enquiry is and on our current drawing queue; we confirm a date when we accept the enquiry rather than publish a standard figure. What we can say is that the six items above are the difference between one pass and three.

Can you work from a photo of a similar building?

Yes, as a starting point for the building type — but the span, height and loads still have to be stated. A photograph cannot be scaled into a structure.

Do you need a soil report?

For the superstructure, no. For foundations and slab design, yes, or at minimum the ground conditions and whether a slab already exists.

We do not have drawings yet. Is it too early?

No. The checklist exists precisely for that stage. Send the six items and a sketch; drawings can follow.

Hebei Hongji Shunda Steel Structure Engineering Co., Ltd. designs and fabricates steel structures for industrial and infrastructure projects in Africa and South America.

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