Start with the package, not the brochure
A steel fabricator in Belfast is usually being asked to do more than cut and weld. The main contractor wants a price that will survive the programme, and a local builder wants a frame that turns up when the groundworks are ready. Both of those depend on who details the steel, who fabricates it, and who stands it.
Ask whether detailing, fabrication and erection sit in one company. When they do, the drawing office, the workshop and the site charge hand are arguing about the same job, not about whose subcontract it is.
Six things worth checking
Execution class. For most building frames the specification is Execution Class 2 under BS EN 1090. Ask for the CE certificate and confirm the class before you put the firm on a tender list. How Steel Structures handles CE marking.
Erection. A fabricator who does not erect will hand you another contractor at the moment the programme is tightest. Directly employed site teams, with a named charge hand, are the cleaner arrangement. Erection from our own crews.
Drawing office. Tekla models, connection design and fabrication drawings should come from people who know the workshop. Tekla detailing and connection design.
Capacity and location. Dunmurry is five miles from Belfast city centre, with access to the M1. Packages here run up to 400 tonnes, and contract values typically sit between £25,000 and £1 million. A small extension and a multi-storey frame are both ordinary work, they just need an honest view of the programme.
Proof. Look for sector, place and year, not a gallery with no facts. The case studies list frames in Belfast, Dublin, London, Manchester and Oxford.
Who you will actually speak to. Estimating should be able to take general arrangement drawings, a specification, an execution class and a return date, and come back with a price from the same office that will run the job.
Large contractor or local builder
A procurement or supply-chain check is mostly documents: CE marking, CHAS, SSIP, Constructionline, Builder's Profile, and a credible list of frames. A local builder's check is shorter. Can they fabricate a portal frame or a mezzanine, erect it, and answer the phone in Dunmurry?
The same works does both. The difference is how much paper you need before the steel is ordered.