Steel counted by panel and by length

Panels are counted per roof face and per wall run at their real length, with cut waste for triangles and trapezoids and a mill-length splice cap.

What it is

Panelisation of the drawn skins: roof faces grouped by panel length and face shape, wall runs grouped by run height, gable-end infill as its own cut-to-rake line, clerestory risers separately, and wainscot separately.

Also called: roof panels · wall steel · panel count · panel length · gable end steel

See it
Steel counted by panel and by length
Prepared for
Gideon Alt
1140 Ridge Line Rd · Fair Play
Shell package$35,073
Concrete & site$10,183
Doors & windows$6,788
Trim & finish$4,526
Total
$56,570
Signature
Sheathing section of the takeoff: several roof panel rows at different lengths with their face counts and waste notes, plus the gable-end line. Sample data — no customer information appears here.
How it works
  1. 1Sheet count per face is the eave span divided by the roofing product's net coverage, then padded for cut waste — 15% on triangles, 10% on trapezoids, none on rectangles.
  2. 2Panels longer than the 40ft mill and trucking ceiling are split into segments and the line says so.
  3. 3Every panel line carries a structured lengthFt, because steel is PRICED BY THE FOOT.
  4. 4Gable-end steel gets an average sheet run so its per-foot price bills against a real length.
  5. 5Shingle roofs branch entirely: squares plus an OSB deck line instead of panels.
Why we built it

Two ways of getting steel wrong both reached real money. Reading a panel's length back out of its written description collapsed every different length into one order row nobody could cut. And a panel line carrying no length billed its sheet count against a per-foot rate — which put $137 of steel on an entire endwall, and at catalogue rates priced a 4,000 sq ft roof at $225. Panels now carry their length and their unit as data all the way to the order, and a check fails the build if a panel line ever loses either one.

The problem
  • Panel orders with no length, which a yard cannot cut to.
  • Per-foot steel priced against a sheet count.
  • Triangular and trapezoidal faces counted as if rectangular.
Sound familiar?
What you get
One order row per panel length, which is how a yard quotes.
Cut waste on angled faces is in the count and stated in the note.
Long panels are split at the real mill cap.

See it on your own jobs

Twenty minutes, your numbers, no slide deck. We’ll build one of your real buildings in front of you and send you the estimate link at the end — yours to keep either way.

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