Steel fabricators in Westerham, Kent

What steel fabrication involves

Fabrication is turning stock steel into a finished piece that fits a particular building. Steel arrives as lengths of box section, angle, flat bar, tube and plate, usually S275 grade mild steel, or as 304 or 316 stainless. We cut it to length, drill and notch it, form any curves and weld it up on a jig, so a flight of stairs or a balcony frame is square and true before it leaves the bench. Welds are dressed so there are no sharp edges, and anything that has to meet something else is trial-assembled in the workshop. Every job starts from a drawing, whether that is our survey sketch or your architect's detail, and that drawing is what the quote, the workshop and the fitters all work from.

Where we are and where we work

The workshop and office are at 4 Fort Cottages, Westerham Hill, Westerham, Kent TN16 2ED, on the North Downs where Kent runs into Surrey and the London Borough of Bromley. Most of our work is within ten miles of Warlingham: Biggin Hill, Bromley, Keston, Orpington, Croydon, Caterham, Oxted, Sevenoaks and the villages between, with the rest spread across Kent, Surrey and South London. Stairs and balconies are built in sections that go on the van and bolt together on site, so a terraced garden in Croydon is no harder to fit than a barn conversion outside Sevenoaks. If you want to talk a job through before you commit to anything, the phones are answered 24 hours a day.

Survey and drawings

We will estimate from photos, but we will not fabricate from them. The survey is free. We check floor-to-floor heights and levels, what the wall or slab the piece fixes to is made of, where drains, cables and services run, and how the finished metalwork will get from the van into position. That tells us whether it wants resin anchors, through-bolts or a base plate, and how many sections to make it in. You then get a drawing to sign off before anything is cut. Where building control needs to see it, we provide drawings and structural calculations: a stair to Approved Document K, a balcony or balustrade loaded to BS 6180, an external escape stair to Approved Document B. If your architect has drawn it, we work from that and flag anything we think will not build.

Materials: mild steel, stainless and glass

Mild steel is the workhorse. It welds cleanly, takes hot-dip galvanising and gives you the most metal for your money, so most stairs, balconies, gates and railings are made from it. Stainless steel costs more and is slower to work, but needs no coating. We use grade 304 inside and in sheltered spots, and 316 where it will be rained on or sits near a pool, because 304 can tea-stain in the open. Glass comes as toughened or toughened laminated panels for balustrades, held in a channel, clamps or stand-offs, and the thickness is set by the span and the loading in BS 6180, not by looks. We will tell you plainly which material suits the job and where the money is best spent.

Galvanising and powder coating

Mild steel that lives outside goes for hot-dip galvanising to BS EN ISO 1461 as standard. The finished piece goes into a bath of molten zinc, which bonds to the steel inside and out, so a scratch does not start rust the way it does through paint. If you want a colour, the galvanised piece is then powder coated: cleaned, coated with polyester powder and baked, which gives a hard skin in any RAL colour. We send work to galvanising and coating plants we trust rather than doing it in-house, because a proper plant gives a thicker, more even coating than anything done in a workshop. That round trip is built into the lead time we give you with the quotation, so you know from the start that finishing adds time between fabrication and fitting.

Fabrication services we offer

Most of our metal fabrication falls into a few families, for domestic and commercial customers alike: external and fire escape staircases, spiral and garden steps; balconies, Juliet balconies included; balustrading in steel, stainless and glass for stairs, landings and terraces; gates for drives and side passages, railings and steel fencing; fixed and caged ladders for roof access; and key-clamp handrails and guardrails. Alongside those come the one-off pieces a builder, architect or facilities manager brings in: a steel frame for a rooflight, a bracket to carry a canopy, a security grille for a basement window. If it is architectural metalwork in steel, stainless or glass, and it needs surveying, drawing, making and fitting by the same people, it is the sort of work we do.

What decides the price

Five things set the price of a fabricated piece: the weight of steel in it, how much cutting, forming and welding it takes, the finish, whether it needs structural calculations, and how awkward the site is. A straight galvanised stair costs far less per step than a curved one with glass infill, and a balustrade on a flat roof with clear access is quicker to fit than one reached over a conservatory. Stainless costs more than galvanised mild steel, and powder coating on top of galvanising adds a second process. Send photos or drawings and you will have a written estimate within the working day. After the free survey you get a fixed quotation, and it only changes if you change the design, so the final invoice matches the quotation.

Straight answers on steel fabricators