Structural Steel, Pipe Racks & Truss Systems
A factory extension adds floor area to an existing production building by joining a new steel structure to the old one. Masas designs, fabricates and erects extensions as part of its structural steel service, including beside plants that stay in production.
Drawings or a written scope is enough to price it.
Steel Factory Extensions
The hardest part of an extension is where it meets the existing building.
Masas is extending Qatar Aluminium Extrusion Company’s plant, tied into the existing structure while production continues. It also completed an extension tied into Barq Group’s working battery factory, where its scope was engineering, fabrication and erection supervision.
Steel Factory Extensions
An extension is a new steel structure built against, or joined to, a production building that already exists. It may continue the existing hall in the same shape, or add a hall of a different width or height beside it. Either way, the new steel has to meet the old building at its columns, its roof and its walls.
The design starts from what the extension is for: another production line, more storage or larger machines. Then comes the question of how it connects. Some extensions stand on their own columns beside the old building, with a joint between them that lets each move. Others rest on the existing columns, which works only if those columns can carry the extra load.
What sets a factory extension apart from a new building is that the factory usually has to keep running. Lifting, deliveries and welding happen close to people, stock and machines, so the work is planned around the plant’s shifts, access routes and safety rules, not only around the steel.
New production halls beside an existing line
Storage or dispatch areas added to a working factory
Taller or wider halls for new machinery
The extension’s roof and wall cladding in the same package
The stages match a new building, with extra care wherever the work meets the existing plant.
01
Masas reviews the drawings or survey information of the existing building, then confirms in writing the extension’s scope, its tie-in points and what the price includes, before quoting.
02
Shop drawings, the method statement, the inspection and test plan and the risk assessment go to your consultant for approval against QCS 2014, before any work starts beside the operating plant.
03
Steel is cut, welded to AWS standards and protected in the Al Wukair workshop, and inspected against the approved plan. Work done in the workshop is work not done on site next to production.
04
Erection follows the sequence agreed with the main contractor and the plant. Snagging, as-built drawings showing the extension and its tie-ins as built, and the consultant’s certificates close the package.
Before you decide
Four questions decide most of how an extension is designed, priced and built. Answering them early avoids surprises once the existing building is opened up.
If the extension is to rest on existing columns or continue the old roof, those members must take the extra load. Original drawings or a survey show whether they can. Where they cannot, the extension gets its own columns alongside, which adds steel but leaves the old frame untouched.
Repeating the existing frame spacing and roof slope can suit a pre-engineered frame, because the parts repeat. A wider span, a taller hall, an overhead crane or heavy equipment usually suits conventional structural steel. Masas builds both, so the choice follows the extension.
Water gathers where two roofs meet, especially when the new roof is higher or drains towards the old one. The gutter, the flashing (the folded metal covering the joint) and any movement joint decide whether that line stays dry. With frame and cladding under one subcontract, one party answers for it.
Which areas must stay open, when deliveries arrive, where cranes can stand and whether a wall of the existing hall has to be opened all shape the erection sequence. Opening a wall usually needs a temporary screen to keep dust and weather out of the working hall.
Plain terms
These words come up whenever a new structure is joined to an old one.
A point where new steel connects to the existing building, such as a column, a roof beam or a foundation. Each tie-in is checked against what the existing structure can safely carry.
A deliberate gap between the old and new structures, covered so that it stays weathertight. It lets each building expand, contract and settle on its own without pulling on the other.
Measuring and inspecting the building as it actually stands: column positions, steel sizes, heights and condition. Old drawings often differ from what was built, so the design relies on what is really there.
Written permission from the factory before work starts in a given area, for example welding near stock or lifting over a roadway. Plants use permits to stop contractors’ work clashing with their own operations.
For a quotation
Original structural drawings, the name of the original steel supplier if known, or photographs and measurements. The more that is known about the existing frame, the less has to be assumed.
Plan dimensions, the clear height you need, and what will happen inside: a production line, storage, machinery, an overhead crane or a mezzanine.
Working hours, the areas that must stay in use, delivery routes, and any safety rules or permits that contractors on site must follow.
Whether you need design, fabrication, erection or all three, and whether the roof and wall cladding and the junction with the old roof are included.
Record
Contract values are not published. Scale is stated in area and clear span.
Engineering, fabrication and erection of an extension to a working extrusion plant, tied into the existing structure while production continued.
View projectEngineering, fabrication and erection supervision for a factory extension tied into the existing production building.
View projectEvery published Masas project, named or anonymised, with its scope and scale.
See all projectsThe other parts of this service, each on its own page with its own evidence.
Send drawings or a scope and we will come back with a quotation.
