Water, a fence and no rear access. How a four-metre steel beam still reaches the back of the house.
There is a canal between the street and your rear elevation. No side access, no delivery route, and a four-metre steel beam has to get in there. In the Netherlands that is not unusual - that is Tuesday.
On a drawing, a steel portal is a calculation: span, load, section. On site a second question arrives that matters just as much - how do we get that section into position?
What access affects
- The section: sometimes a lighter section with an intermediate support beats a heavier one that cannot be delivered
- The length: bringing steel in sections and joining on site is a real option
- The sequence: sometimes the steel goes in before other demolition begins
- The programme: a crane day is a fixed cost you want to incur once
Why we assess this before quoting
If the delivery route only becomes a problem on the day, it is too late. The crane is there, the steel is ready, and a solution has to be improvised on site. That costs money and it rarely produces the best structure.
We establish the delivery route before we fix the section. In that order.
So when an enquiry comes in we ask for photos of the situation, and we come and look before anything is ordered. What we see then feeds into what we propose.