What is Steel Detailing in Support Of Excavation projects?

The Saskarc Design & Detailing Differentiator in Excavation Support - Chapter 2

TL;DR

Steel detailing is the quiet backbone of excavation support projects and it doesn’t always get the credit it deserves. Done well, it turns complex engineering intent into clear, buildable instructions that make fabrication accurate, installation straightforward, and crews safer. Done poorly, it can stop cranes mid-lift, force costly redesigns, or bring an entire jobsite to a standstill.

In this article, we dig into why steel detailing is so critical for temporary works like struts, walers, traffic decking and equipment decking. You’ll see how good steel detailers anticipate problems, whether it is heavy members, changing site conditions, or tight schedules, and often save clients far more than the detailing fee itself. We will also share real project lessons, showing how proactive involvement can prevent issues long before steel arrives on site.

If keeping projects safe, efficient, and on budget matters, this is where it all starts.

Table of Contents

▲

TL;DR
Steel Detailing: Transforming Design to Reality
So, what exactly is steel detailing in the context of excavation support?

Pro-Tip

What Makes Early Works Different?
The Role of Steel Detailing in Support of Excavation or Temporary Steel Works
Challenges in temporary steel works
The Role of Steel Detailers in the Success of SOE Projects
What is the Impact of Poor Steel Detailing on Support of Excavation Projects?
Bridging the Gap between Design Intent & Construction Reality

Why Experience Pays Off

How Saskarc Bridges the Gap
To Summarize
FAQs

Steel Detailing: Transforming Design to Reality

Picture yourself standing at the bottom of a deep excavation. Towering steel struts and walers surround you, holding back thousands of tonnes of soil and water. Above, the city keeps moving – cars, trains, even buildings all relying on that temporary steel to do its job flawlessly.

Now imagine trying to build a subway support system or a temporary bridge without clear instructions. The steel arrives on site, but no one knows exactly how it fits together. Even worse, imagine if the wrong steel grade is delivered. A critical waler designed to be 350W shows up as 300W or if one of those struts was cut too short.

A single mistake could jeopardize the entire system, putting the entire project at risk, impacting schedule, budget and safety.

This is where steel detailing comes in.

At Saskarc, we’ve lived this reality on countless strut and waler projects, where temporary steel systems hold back earth during excavation. These projects often arrive with late starts, tight deadlines, and evolving designs. Yet, time and again, the difference between chaos and success comes down to one thing: detailing done right, from the beginning.

So, what exactly is steel detailing in the context of excavation support?

Think of it as the step that turns design intent into something buildable. Engineers may define the loads, member sizes, and performance requirements, but it’s the detailer who translates that information into clear, practical instructions that fabricators and site crews can actually use. Dimensions, material grades, splice locations, welds, and bolt types, all of it gets captured with precision.

In simple terms, steel detailing takes the “what” of engineering and turns it into the “how” of construction. It eliminates guesswork by defining every component and connection to industry standards, ensuring that when the steel shows up on site, it fits, functions, and can be erected safely and efficiently.

Steel detailers prepare 3D models, shop drawings, and erection plans that fabricators and field crews can trust. Every weld, splice, bolt hole, and plate is mapped out for these complex excavation support projects. It’s a profession that requires not only technical skill but the ability to think ahead, anticipate field challenges, and prevent problems before steel ever leaves the yard.

Steel detailing has three main components. Shop Drawings, Erection Drawings and Bill of Materials (BOM). We have explained these in greater detail in our article – What is Steel Detailing in Infrastructure Projects. We highly recommend you have a read.

Pro-Tip

How Can Excavation Support Projects Reduce Costly Errors & Maintain Schedules?

At Saskarc, we’ve learned that the earlier detailers are brought into a project, the better the outcome. Getting involved from day one gives us the chance to spot issues before they snowball, fine-tune tricky connections, and keep costly surprises off the table. Time and again, the savings clients see end up far greater than the cost of detailing itself. That’s why we strongly recommend Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) as a smart move for any project that needs to hit its schedule and budget with confidence.

Pro-Tip

How Can Excavation Support Projects Reduce Costly Errors & Maintain Schedules?

What Makes Early Works Different?

Unlike permanent structures, early works projects are temporary by design, but they are no less complex. Struts and walers are massive, heavily loaded members designed to stabilize deep excavations. They must be fabricated to tight tolerances and erected quickly in challenging site conditions. Traffic and equipment decking carry live loads over active construction zones and need to be safe, strong, and easy to install.

The difference is urgency. Early works projects almost always happen under accelerated timelines because they are the enabling works that make the rest of the project possible. If the detailing isn’t right — or isn’t ready — the whole project stalls before it even starts.

“Early works may be temporary, but the detailing must be permanent in its precision.”

The Role of Steel Detailing in Support of Excavation or Temporary Steel Works

Support of Excavation, commonly referred to as temporary steel works, covers struts, walers, decking, traffic decking and equipment decking. These temporary works support deep excavations where safety is critical and conditions constantly shift. These aren’t architectural showpieces. They are the backbone of excavation support, keeping earth in place so the real work can proceed safely, especially in large infrastructural projects.

On nearly every project, site realities differ from design intent. Excavation uncovers unexpected soil behavior. Installers discover that their erection sequence won’t work as drawn. Engineers revise forces impacting member sizes or reinforcing of members mid-project..

They present unique challenges that make detailing even more critical than on permanent structures. Unlike commercial or industrial projects, connections in bracing systems can represent up to 30–60% of the total steel weight. A single miscalculated plate thickness or bolt grade can amplify costs and create significant delays.

Challenges in temporary steel works

For those unfamiliar, walers & struts are massive steel bracing systems used to support excavations while permanent structures are built.

Early works projects come with unique challenges, and detailing is where many of them are uncovered and solved. Some of these include:

Heavy Member Sizes

A single waler can weigh so much that a site crane may not be sized to handle it. Without careful planning and splice design, installation comes to a halt.

Heavy Member Sizes

A single waler can weigh so much that a site crane may not be sized to handle it. Without careful planning and splice design, installation comes to a halt.

Changing Site Conditions

Excavations rarely go exactly as planned. In our experience we have seen engineers being forced to re-design mid-project due to unexpected soil movement, water ingress, or underground obstructions. Each change requires updated details and drawings.

Changing Site Conditions

Tight Schedules

Temporary works are often the domino at the front of the line. If detailing lags or is inaccurate, the whole project gets held up.

Tight Schedules

Temporary works are often the domino at the front of the line. If detailing lags or is inaccurate, the whole project gets held up.

Limited Communication

Detailers often don’t have direct access to the client, erector, or Engineer of Record (EOR). Without early involvement, the only formal tool for clarifications is RFIs. Saskarc takes pride in drafting clear, solution-oriented RFIs that help resolve issues quickly.

Limited Communication

Design Changes

Almost every excavation support project faces mid-project design changes due to site conditions, excavation progress, or installation constraints. These changes ripple directly into detailing, fabrication, and schedules.

Design Changes

This is where proactive detailing makes the difference. By being involved early, detailers can propose splice locations, optimize connection details, and foresee installation challenges before they become schedule-killers.

The Role of Steel Detailers in the Success of SOE Projects

Detailers play a critical role in identifying potential issues before steel reaches the site. For example, they may notice that planned splice locations could make assemblies too heavy for shipping or crane installation. By flagging this early, the team can collaborate with engineers to adjust splice locations, recalculate forces, and optimize connections which saves time and avoids costly rework.

Experienced detailers are also skilled at managing change. In early works projects, it is only as excavation progresses that ground conditions often reveal themselves, requiring quick adjustments. High-quality steel detailers, anticipate these challenges, raise RFIs strategically, and collaborate with fabricators, engineers, and erectors to find practical solutions. Inexperienced detailers (most likely a cheaper resource), in contrast, often generate excessive RFIs or overlook critical design issues, leading to fabrication errors, missing materials, and site delays. Which is why most partners seek out Saskarc for Support of Excavation projects. Saskarc’s team of experienced detailers provide the critical expertise that reduce risks, costs & potentially debilitating project delivery delays.

Steel detailers are also subject to several wrong assumptions & myths. In a recent article we covered three of them which are dangerous misconceptions and cause contractors time & money. You can read about the 3 myths about steel detailing here.

“Good detailers don’t just solve problems. They prevent them from happening.”

What is the Impact of Poor Steel Detailing on Support of Excavation Projects?

Poor detailing decisions have a direct and measurable financial impact on early works projects. For example, if splice locations or assembled member weights are not carefully coordinated during detailing, the result can be astronomical costs. A missed splice review can mean a waler ends up far heavier than anticipated.

On one project, the design showed a massive waler that appeared workable on paper. The detailer, however, didn’t flag how the splice locations would affect the final assembled weight. When fabrication wrapped up, the result was a 40-ton waler. Far too heavy for the crane that had already been mobilized to site.

At that point, the team had two options.

A

Scramble to re-engineer the splice locations or

B

Bring in a larger crane at significant cost.

Either way, the project faced delays and thousands of dollars in extra expense. All because a simple detailing oversight slipped through.

Now compare that to another project where one of our senior detailers caught a similar issue early in the model. By raising the concern and suggesting a revised splice, Saskarc was able to work with the engineer to resolve it before fabrication even started. The crane plan stayed intact, the erection sequence went smoothly, and the client avoided a costly delay.

That is the difference quality detailing makes. By providing the foresight to prevent problems before they happen. It is not just lines on a drawing. It is protecting the project schedule, the budget, and ultimately, the client’s trust.

“Cut corners on detailing, and you’ll pay for it twice — once in dollars, and again in delays.”

Bridging the Gap between Design Intent & Construction Reality

Flexibility, attention to detail, and deep experience allow competent detailers to bridge the gap between design intent and practical construction realities. In temporary steel works, their work is the difference between smooth, safe assembly and costly, time-consuming problems. Quality detailing ensures every strut, waler, and modular component fits perfectly — first time, every time. This is where detailers earn their stripes. At Saskarc, our team doesn’t just push problems downstream. We pull in erectors, engineers, and clients early, flag issues, and propose solutions. Once, a client couldn’t grasp why a connection wasn’t working until our detailer joined the call and explained it through the lens of the EOR’s installation style. That conversation unlocked the solution. Install went smoothly. Calls from site? None. That’s the power of detailers who own the outcome, not just the drawings. Steel detailing comes with its fair share of myths. We recently outlined three of the most damaging steel detailing misconceptions that can hit contractors hard in both time and cost. You can read about it here.

Why Experience Pays Off

In steel detailing, cost-cutting can backfire. While some firms offer detailing for as little as $15/hour, their drawings often create more problems than they solve — resulting in excessive RFIs, in-house fixes, and project delays.

In contrast, experienced detailers (who might definitely cost a little more than $15/hour), consistently catch design issues early, reduce coordination headaches, and prevent costly fabrication errors. The upfront investment is small compared to the savings in avoided rework and lost time.

Why Experience Pays Off

How Saskarc Bridges the Gap

At Saskarc, we don’t just detail what’s provided. We optimize it.

Our Engineering & Detailing team proactively reviews design packages and detailers’ models to identify efficiencies, often saving clients more in site savings than any additional redesign costs. Our infraMOD approach ensures the most efficient connection design possible.

Every department at Saskarc contributes expertise. Fabricators, project managers, and engineers provide input up front, helping us refine both our detailing deliverables and our comprehensive 47-page Detailing Standard. This standard, now through 10 revisions, is a living document shaped by years of continuous improvement. It sets expectations for everything from part labeling and material callouts to sequencing, numbering, and even the CNC data files needed for robotic welding.

When subcontracted detailers deviate from the standard, we can enforce corrections without absorbing unnecessary back-charges. This accountability ensures accuracy, efficiency, and quality every time.

“At Saskarc, detailing isn’t a cost — it’s an investment in project certainty.”

To Summarize

Steel detailing is more than drawings on paper — it is the safeguard that keeps support of excavation projects safe, efficient, and on track. From preventing oversized walers from stalling cranes to catching costly design oversights before they leave the shop, good detailing shapes the success of every project. At Saskarc, we’ve seen firsthand how early involvement and proactive detailing can save weeks of time and thousands of dollars.

But this is only part of the story. In the next article, we’ll dive into the processes, tools, and technologies that detailers rely on, and the challenges they face, to deliver that level of precision. If the “why” of detailing matters, the “how” is just as critical.

Because at the end of the day, steel detailing isn’t just technical work—it’s the quiet discipline that keeps complex projects moving smoothly and safely from start to finish.

FAQs

Q1: What is steel detailing in infrastructure Support of Excavation (SOE) projects?

Steel detailing in Support of Excavation (SOE), is the process of transforming engineering design drawings into precise fabrication and erection instructions. It includes shop drawings, erection drawings, and bills of material that ensure steel components are manufactured and assembled accurately. Without detailing, projects face errors, rework, and costly delays.

Q2: Why is steel detailing important in support of excavation (SOE) projects?

In SOE projects, struts, walers, and decking must fit perfectly to safely hold back earth and water. Accurate detailing ensures these temporary works are buildable, safe, and aligned with site conditions. Errors in detailing can lead to schedule overruns, added crane costs, and safety risks.

Q3: What are the main components of steel detailing?

The three key components are:

Shop Drawings – precise fabrication instructions.
Erection Drawings – step-by-step assembly guidance.
Bill of Materials (BOM) – lists every component and material needed.

Q4: How does poor steel detailing affect project costs?

Poor steel detailing often results in rework, idle crews, and equipment delays. For example, a detailing oversight can turn into a $150,000 rework bill. Every mistake multiplies in the field, making “cheap” steel detailing the most expensive choice in the long run.

Q5: How can projects reduce detailing errors?

The best approach is Early Contractor Involvement (ECI). Involving steel detailers early allows them to anticipate site challenges, optimize connections, and flag potential issues before fabrication begins — saving time, money, and reducing RFIs. Also of importance, is selecting the right organization to work with. Organizations like Saskarc provide experience, knowledge & skills that help catch errors early. This is especially important in large infrastructure & support of excavation projects. They provide guidance and work closely with project teams to deliver on time, reduce costs and manage risks effectively.