Most people have never set foot in a metal fabrication shop. The whole process — from a phone call about a railing idea to finished steel bolted in place — happens behind the scenes. Contractors see parts of it. Architects interact with shop drawings. Homeowners mostly just wait for the install date.
We run a C.W.B. certified fabrication shop in Burnaby, and every project follows roughly the same path. The scale changes — a single gate is different from a 40-unit condo railing package — but the stages don’t. Here’s what actually happens at each one, with real timelines and costs so you know what to expect.
Step 1: Initial consultation — starting the conversation
Every project starts with a conversation. Sometimes it’s a homeowner in Coquitlam who saw a railing on Instagram and wants something similar. Sometimes it’s a general contractor in Vancouver with a full set of architectural drawings and a tight schedule. The starting point varies, but the goal is the same: figure out what you need, what the site looks like, and whether the project is a good fit.
What to bring. Anything helps. A napkin sketch. A photo from Pinterest. Measurements you took with a tape measure. If you’re working with an architect or interior designer, their drawings are the gold standard — dimensions, material specs, and code requirements are already figured out. If you don’t have any of that, we can work with “I want a railing that looks like this” and a photo from your phone.
For residential projects, the consultation usually happens over email or a phone call, followed by a site visit. We need to see the actual conditions — floor levels, wall materials, existing finishes, access for installation. Photos help, but they don’t show everything. A staircase that looks straightforward in a photo might have a 2-degree out-of-plumb wall that changes the entire mounting approach.
Commercial jobs almost always start with a site visit or a set of construction drawings. On larger scopes, we’ll meet with the architect, structural engineer, and general contractor together to walk through the intent and the constraints.
Timeline: 1–3 days from first contact to site visit for residential. Commercial timelines depend on the GC’s schedule.
Step 2: Quoting — building a real number
After the site visit and initial discussion, we put together a quote. This isn’t a guess pulled from a price-per-foot chart. It’s a line-by-line estimate based on the actual scope: material type and quantity, design complexity, finish specification, installation conditions, and timeline.
What drives cost. The biggest factors, in order: material type (mild steel vs. stainless vs. aluminum), design complexity (straight runs vs. curves, standard vs. custom details), finishing (powder coat vs. galvanizing vs. brushed stainless), and installation difficulty (wood frame vs. concrete, ground level vs. 12 stories up).
A straight mild steel railing on a residential deck is a fundamentally different scope than a curved stainless steel canopy on a commercial building. The quoting process reflects that. For simple residential work, we can turn a quote around in 2–3 business days. Larger commercial scopes with multiple line items, phased delivery, and coordination requirements take 5–7 business days.
We provide quotes in writing with a clear breakdown. You’ll see material, fabrication labour, finishing, and installation as separate line items. If you need to value-engineer the project — swap stainless for mild steel, simplify a detail, drop a section of scope — you can see exactly where the numbers move.
Timeline: 2–5 business days for the quote itself, depending on scope.
Step 3: Shop drawings — the blueprint for fabrication
Once a quote is accepted, the next step is shop drawings. These are the fabrication team’s instruction set — detailed, dimensioned drawings that show every piece, every connection, every weld location, every mounting point. They’re drawn to scale, typically at 1:10 or 1:5 for details, and they include material specifications, finish callouts, and hardware schedules.
Shop drawings matter because they’re the last cheap place to make changes. Moving a post 6 inches on a drawing takes five minutes. Moving it after it’s welded to a frame takes hours and scrap material.
For residential projects, we produce the shop drawings in-house. The client (and their designer, if they have one) reviews them and signs off before we cut any steel. On most residential scopes, one round of revisions is typical — adjusting a height here, shifting a post location there.
Structural and commercial work adds a layer. An engineer of record reviews and seals the shop drawings before fabrication. In BC, this is required for any structural metalwork — stairs, guardrails on commercial buildings, canopies, mezzanine framing. The engineer checks load paths, connection capacity, anchorage design, and seismic requirements. Metro Vancouver sits in a high seismic zone, which means connections and base plates often need to be heavier than what you’d see in, say, an Alberta project. Seismic design adds 10–20% to the steel weight on structural jobs, which carries through to material cost and installation.
The engineering review adds time — typically 1–2 weeks on top of the drawing production itself, depending on the engineer’s workload. On larger commercial projects with multiple rounds of review and coordination with the architect, the shop drawing phase can run 3–4 weeks.
Timeline: 1–2 weeks for residential shop drawings and approval. 3–4 weeks for commercial/structural work with engineering review.
Step 4: Material procurement — sourcing the steel
With approved drawings in hand, we order material. For standard mild steel — hollow structural sections (HSS), flat bar, plate, angle — our local suppliers in the Lower Mainland typically deliver within 3–5 business days. We keep common sizes in stock at the shop, so smaller projects can sometimes start fabrication the same week drawings are approved.
Lead times in 2026. Standard mild steel availability has been stable this year. The supply chain disruptions of 2022–2023 have mostly worked themselves out, and local service centres are well stocked on common profiles. Current lead times for standard mild steel sections: 3–5 business days from local distributors. Structural steel for larger beams and columns: 1–2 weeks.
Specialty materials are a different story. Stainless steel sheet and tube in 304 or 316 grade — 1 to 3 weeks depending on gauge and profile. Corten (weathering steel) — 2 to 4 weeks, sometimes longer for heavier plate. Brass and bronze — 3 to 6 weeks for anything beyond standard bar stock. Perforated or expanded metal panels in custom patterns — 4 to 8 weeks.
If your project involves a specialty material, we flag it during quoting so there are no surprises. On a recent commercial lobby project in downtown Vancouver, the architect specified a custom perforated panel pattern in Corten steel. That single material line item added six weeks to the project timeline. Knowing that upfront let the GC adjust the schedule before it became a problem.
Timeline: 3–5 business days for standard steel. 1–6 weeks for specialty materials.
Step 5: Fabrication — where the steel becomes the thing
This is the stage most people picture when they think of metalwork — sparks, welding, grinding. It’s the core of what we do, and it’s where C.W.B. certification and shop quality matter most.
Cutting. Raw steel gets cut to the dimensions on the shop drawings. We use a combination of cold saw, band saw, and plasma cutting depending on the material and the cut geometry. Straight cuts on tube and bar go through the cold saw. Complex profiles and plate work go on the plasma table. Every piece gets marked and organized by assembly — on a multi-section railing project, that might mean 200+ individual pieces that all need to end up in the right place.
Fitting. Before any welding happens, the pieces get fit together dry. This is where you catch problems — a post that’s 3mm too long, a mitre that’s off by half a degree, a mounting bracket that doesn’t align with the anchor layout. Fitting takes time, but it’s faster and cheaper than fixing weld defects later.
Welding. All structural welding in our shop follows CSA W47.1 standards under our C.W.B. certification. That means qualified welders, documented procedures, and regular inspection. For architectural work where the welds are visible — furniture, railings with exposed joints, decorative screens — we put extra time into weld appearance. Clean, consistent beads that look as good as they hold.
Grinding and finishing prep. After welding, joints get ground smooth where required. On architectural pieces, this can take as long as the welding itself. A railing with fully dressed welds — ground flush, sanded to 120 grit, no visible joint lines — is significantly more labour than one where the weld beads are left as-is under a textured powder coat.
Quality checks. Every assembly gets checked against the shop drawings before it leaves the welding bay. Dimensions, squareness, fit-up to adjacent pieces. On structural work, we do visual weld inspection per CSA W59 requirements. If the engineer’s spec calls for non-destructive testing (NDT) — ultrasonic or magnetic particle inspection — we coordinate that with a third-party inspection firm.
Fabrication timelines vary with scope. A single residential gate: 2–3 days in the shop. A full staircase railing system for a custom home: 1–2 weeks. A multi-floor commercial railing package: 3–6 weeks, often fabricated in phases to match the GC’s installation schedule.
Timeline: 3 days to 6 weeks depending on scope and complexity.
Step 6: Finishing — protection and appearance
Raw steel looks good for about a week. Then it starts to oxidize, especially in Vancouver’s climate. Finishing is what gives the piece both its final appearance and its long-term durability.
Powder coating is the standard for most architectural and residential metalwork. The process: parts are sandblasted or chemically pre-treated to remove mill scale and contaminants, then electrostatically sprayed with dry powder, then baked in an oven at approximately 200 degrees Celsius for 10–20 minutes. The result is a hard, even finish that’s more durable than wet paint and available in hundreds of colours.
A standard single-colour matte or semi-gloss coat — the classic satin black that goes on most railings — costs $8–$15 per linear foot on a railing project. Custom colours, metallics, and textured finishes run $12–$25 per foot. RAL colour matching (matching a specific architect-specified colour) is standard — we do it on most commercial jobs.
Hot-dip galvanizing is the heavy-duty option for exterior steel. The entire piece gets submerged in molten zinc at about 450 degrees Celsius. The zinc bonds metallurgically to the steel surface, creating a sacrificial layer that corrodes before the steel does. In Metro Vancouver’s 1,200mm of annual rainfall, galvanizing adds 20–30 years of corrosion protection. We recommend it for any exterior steel that’s going to see weather.
Galvanizing costs roughly $12–$25 per linear foot on railing-scale work. The parts go to an outside galvanizing facility — there are two in the Lower Mainland — and turnaround is typically 5–7 business days.
Galvanizing plus powder coat is the belt-and-suspenders approach. Galvanize for corrosion protection, then powder coat on top for colour and appearance. This is our standard recommendation for exterior railings, gates, and canopies in Metro Vancouver. It adds cost — roughly $20–$40 per linear foot total for both processes — but the longevity justifies it.
Brushed and polished stainless steel doesn’t need paint or galvanizing. Instead, the surface gets mechanically finished — scotch-brite pad for a brushed satin look, progressive grits up to 320 or 600 for a mirror polish. This finish is maintenance-free in most applications, though waterfront installations benefit from quarterly wipe-downs to prevent tea staining from salt deposits.
Timeline: 5–10 business days for powder coating. 5–7 business days for galvanizing. 1–3 days for stainless steel finishing in-shop.
Step 7: Installation — putting it all in place
Finished pieces come back to the shop for a final check, then get loaded for delivery and installation. This is where all the upstream work pays off — or where shortcuts earlier in the process show up as problems.
Site prep. Before the install crew arrives, the site needs to be ready. For a residential deck railing, that means the deck surface is complete and the perimeter framing is in place. For a commercial lobby installation, it means the floors are poured, the walls are up, and the anchor locations we laid out during the shop drawing phase are actually where they’re supposed to be. On commercial jobs, we coordinate with the GC to confirm site readiness 48 hours before our scheduled install date.
Delivery. Large assemblies get delivered on our shop truck. Oversized pieces — long stair stringers, large canopy frames — sometimes need a flatbed. For high-rise work, we coordinate with the crane operator or hoist schedule to get material up to the floor. This kind of logistics planning happens during the shop drawing phase, not the week of installation.
Installation. Our install crews handle the mounting, levelling, and final adjustment on site. Residential railing installations typically take 1–2 days. A full staircase system with landings and transitions might take 2–3 days. Commercial scopes vary widely — a single-floor lobby guardrail might be a day; a full multi-floor railing package on a new condo tower is a week or more, phased across multiple visits as floors become available.
Mounting methods depend on the substrate. Wood framing gets through-bolted with backing plates. Concrete gets drilled anchors — mechanical or epoxy-set depending on the engineer’s spec and the edge distance. Steel-to-steel connections get bolted or field-welded per the approved shop drawings.
Final inspection. On permit work, the local building inspector does a field review after installation. In Burnaby, Vancouver, and most Metro Vancouver municipalities, this is a scheduled inspection — typically a 1–2 day wait for the inspector to come out. They check railing height, baluster spacing (the 100mm sphere test), connection points, and general compliance with the approved drawings.
Punch list. On almost every project, there’s a short list of minor items that get noted during the final walkthrough — a small touch-up on a powder coat chip from transport, a base plate cover that needs adjustment, a sealant bead at a wall connection. We address punch list items within 5 business days of the walkthrough, usually faster.
Timeline: 1–3 days for residential installation. 1–2 weeks for commercial scopes. Add 1–2 days for inspection scheduling.
Coordinating with other trades on commercial jobs
On residential projects, we’re usually the only metal trade on site. Commercial work is different. The GC has a schedule with 15 or 20 trades coming through in sequence, and our work intersects with several of them.
Concrete trades pour the slabs and walls we anchor into. If our anchor locations aren’t laid out before the pour, or if the concrete crew moves a form and shifts an embed plate by 50mm, that’s a problem we discover at installation — and it costs time to fix.
Glazing trades install glass panels in our railing frames, or their curtain wall system meets our canopy at a flashing detail. Coordination on dimensions and sequencing matters.
Painters and drywall need to know where our wall brackets land so they don’t finish a wall surface that we’re about to drill into.
Elevator installers on multi-storey buildings affect our phasing — we can’t install railings on a floor that’s still being used as the primary hoist access.
Good fabricators manage this coordination proactively. We attend site meetings, review the GC’s three-week look-ahead schedule, and flag conflicts before they happen. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the difference between a project that runs smoothly and one that burns two weeks on site waiting for someone else to finish their scope.
BC-specific details: permits, inspections, and seismic
Metro Vancouver has specific requirements that affect fabrication projects.
Permits. Structural metalwork — railings, stairs, canopies, mezzanines — requires a building permit in every Metro Vancouver municipality. The permit application typically includes shop drawings, an engineer’s sealed structural drawings, and a site plan. Permit turnaround varies: Burnaby is currently running 3–4 weeks for residential permits, Vancouver 4–6 weeks, and some smaller municipalities like Port Moody or Pitt Meadows can be faster at 2–3 weeks.
Inspections. BC requires field inspection for structural work at specific hold points. For a railing installation, that’s typically one inspection after the railing is installed and before it’s in service. For structural steel — canopies, mezzanines, stair structures — there may be multiple inspection points: anchor installation, steel erection, and final completion.
Seismic design. The Lower Mainland is classified as a high seismic zone under the National Building Code. This affects connection design on any structural metalwork. Base plates tend to be thicker, anchor bolt patterns larger, and weld sizes heavier than equivalent work in lower-seismic regions. On a recent canopy project in downtown Vancouver, seismic design requirements added roughly 15% to the steel weight compared to a gravity-only design. That flows through to material cost, fabrication time, and installation effort.
These requirements add time and cost, but they’re non-negotiable — and they exist for good reasons. A properly engineered and inspected piece of structural metalwork will perform safely for decades, including during the seismic events that BC’s building code is designed to address.
The full timeline, end to end
Here’s a realistic schedule for a typical residential project — say, a custom steel-and-cable staircase railing in a new home build in Burnaby:
- Consultation and site visit: Week 1
- Quote preparation and approval: Weeks 1–2
- Shop drawings and client approval: Weeks 2–4
- Material procurement: Weeks 4–5
- Fabrication: Weeks 5–7
- Finishing (powder coat): Weeks 7–8
- Installation: Week 8–9
- Inspection and punch list: Week 9–10
Total: roughly 8–10 weeks from first call to completed, inspected installation. Some of these stages overlap — material ordering happens while drawings are being finalized, for example — which is how the timeline compresses from what would otherwise be 12+ weeks.
Commercial projects run longer. A multi-floor railing package on a new construction project might span 12–16 weeks, with fabrication and installation phased across multiple floors. A structural canopy or mezzanine with engineered connections and seismic design adds the engineering review time and potentially longer permit timelines.
Getting started
If you have a project in mind — residential or commercial, simple or complicated — the best first step is a conversation. Tell us what you’re thinking, send photos or drawings if you have them, and we’ll tell you whether it’s something we can do, roughly what it costs, and how long it takes.
No project is too early to discuss. Some of our best residential work started with a homeowner calling and saying “I have this idea but I don’t know if it’s possible.” That’s a fine place to start.
Request a quote or contact our Burnaby shop to start the conversation.
