Design your steel building
Size it, shape the roof, pick the colours, put the doors where you want them and choose a base wall, and watch it take shape in 3D as you go. When it looks right, send it: South West Steel Buildings price the building from exactly what you have drawn, and the groundworks quantities go with it.
How the designer works
Six short steps, then a summary. Start with what the building is for and how big it is: a span of 3–20 m, a length of 3–40 m and a height to the eaves of 2.1–6 m. The bays are worked out for you, never more than six metres apart, because that is how the frames are made.
Then the roof, an apex or a mono-pitch at anything from 5–30°; the colours and cladding, walls and roof chosen separately from 20 standard colours; and the doors. Add a roller, a personnel door or a pair of double doors to any wall and slide it into place, either with the slider or by dragging it on the model itself. The designer keeps each door clear of the corner columns and of its neighbours, and stops a door being taller than the eaves will take.
The last two steps are the ones a frame quote never covers: a base wall of block, brick or concrete panels, and the slab and site underneath. Each step checks what you have put in before letting you move on, so the design you send is one that can actually be built.
What goes with your enquiry
Everything you chose, written out in full: the size and bays, the roof and its height at the ridge, both colours with their codes, the cladding, the flashings, the guttering, every door with its size and exactly where it sits on its wall, and the rooflights.
With it goes the take-off for the base. For a block or brick wall that means the number of blocks or bricks to order, the mortar, the wall ties into the steelwork, the damp-proof course and the concrete for the foundation it stands on. For the slab it is the concrete to order, the Type 1, the mesh and how many lorry loads of spoil are coming off. The same figures are shown to you on the summary step, so nothing is sent that you have not seen.
You add your name, a way to reach you and the site postcode, which is all it takes to price delivery and erection. Every enquiry gets a reply the same day.
What it leaves out, and why
The price, first of all. That comes from South West Steel Buildings, who design, supply and erect the building, because a building price depends on engineering this page cannot do. Then the pad foundations under the columns: their size comes off the structural design and the ground they sit in, and guessing them is not a corner worth cutting.
Planning is its own question too. Many farm buildings in Cornwall and Devon go through prior approval rather than a full application, and a domestic garage may not need permission at all, but that turns on where the building goes and what it is for. The designer says whether Building Regulations are likely to apply; it cannot say whether the council will agree.
Common questions
- Why doesn’t the designer show a price?
- Because the only honest price for a steel building comes from the people who design and make it. South West Steel Buildings price every building from its engineering: the span, the height, the wind loading where it will stand, the doors and the cladding all move the steel in it. A figure worked out on a web page would be a guess dressed up as a quote. What the designer does instead is make sure the enquiry they price from is complete, so the reply you get back is a real number for the building you actually want.
- Is the groundworks figure a quote?
- No. It is a quantity take-off: how much concrete, Type 1, mesh and muck-away the base is likely to take, and the blocks, mortar and foundation concrete for a base wall. It uses the same engine as the groundworks calculator on this site. Your groundworker or engineer confirms it against your ground before anything is ordered, and the pad foundations under the columns come from the structural design, so they are left out on purpose.
- Can I save a design and come back to it?
- Your design is kept while the tab is open, so a refresh or a look at another page on the site will not lose it. Close the tab and it is gone, which is deliberate: nothing about you is stored in your browser or on our side until you choose to send the enquiry.
- What if my building is bigger than the designer allows?
- The designer covers spans of 3–20 m and lengths of 3–40 m, which are the sizes South West Steel Buildings supply as standard. For anything outside that, send an enquiry with the rough size instead. Bigger and unusual buildings are designed individually, and the conversation starts the same way.
- Are the colours on screen accurate?
- They are a guide. There are 20 standard colours, named with their RAL or BS codes, and every screen shows them slightly differently. Ask for a sample before you settle on one, especially if the building has to sit well next to an existing one or satisfy a planning condition.
Other buildings we cover
Same approach on each: what the building is, how it gets sized, where you stand on planning, and what the base underneath it comes to.
Machinery stores
Clear span, no posts in the way, and a floor that works harder than most. What it costs to put up and what it costs underneath.
Grain stores
Walls that get pushed from the inside, a floor that takes a loader, and a roof that rains on the crop if you get it wrong.
Livestock buildings
Housing that has to ventilate, drain and be scraped out. Falls, channels and the slurry rules — plus the 400 metre planning trap.
Farm workshops
Room to get a machine in and work all round it, with a floor specced for the jack rather than the tractor.
Hay barns
Open sides, air through it, and the lightest slab on the farm — if it needs one at all.
General purpose buildings
The shed that ends up doing everything. How to spec a building for a use you have not decided yet.
Stables and arenas
Stable blocks, American barns and indoor arenas. The same steel frame as a farm building — and a completely different planning position.
Garages and workshops
Steel framed garages, home workshops and man caves at the house. The eaves limit that decides whether you need planning permission, and the floor underneath.
Industrial units
Workshops, warehousing, trade counters and light manufacturing. Full planning, full Building Regs, and a yard that often costs more than the shed.
Rather just talk it through?
Send the rough size and what the building is for, and the first reply will be useful rather than a list of questions. The groundworks calculator is there if you only want the base worked out.