I help owners get the building right before anyone quotes it.

What I actually do

Most of my work is with owners and project managers building in Africa and South America — warehouses, workshops, cold stores, material sheds, site camps. The conversation usually starts with a drawing and a question about price, and it usually ends with two or three decisions changed, because those decisions were made before anyone looked at the site.

I am not a fabricator and I do not pretend to be one. I know what a frame can and cannot do, what a yard can lift, and where a specification quietly costs more than it saves.

How I work

• First look is free. Send span, length, eave height and what the building carries. I will tell you what I would change before you ask anyone to quote.
• I will tell you when you do not need me. Some projects are straightforward and the honest answer is to go straight to a supplier.
• I will tell you when the local option is better. If a small building is needed quickly, buying it near the site is usually the cheaper and faster route, and I will say so.

Where I sit

Based in China, working with steel structure fabricators and the projects they supply. The buildings I write about are built by Chinese fabricators and erected on site by local contractors. I see the drawings, the shop floor and the complaints, which is where most of these notes come from.

22 years in export trading, 4 of them on steel structure buildings. Five buildings delivered to date: 9,800 m² and 3,200 m² in Brazil, and 2,100 m², 2,700 m² and 2,000 m² in Burkina Faso. Working language: English.

Why this site exists

Because the same five mistakes appear in enquiry after enquiry, in four different countries, from companies that have nothing to do with each other. Writing them down once is faster than explaining them again on every call.

Who I work with

I am the export engineer on the China side of the steel structure business at Hebei Hongji Shunda Steel Structure Engineering Co., Ltd. (河北宏基舜达钢结构工程股份有限公司), a Chinese manufacturer of prefabricated steel buildings. The company has been building since 2000 and works from a 125,000 m² production base with six production workshops and four 150 t overhead cranes, operating an ISO 9001 quality management system.

Most of the people I work with are not steel specialists. They are food processors, logistics operators, cooperatives, mining companies and contractors who need a building, a schedule and someone who answers the phone.