The first week on a steel roofing site rarely looks like the drawings. You have the truss layout, the bolt schedule, the crane booking — and then you have the actual ground conditions, the weather, and the crew that shows up at 7 a.m. This post walks through what that first week really involves when you are putting up heavy-duty steel roofing for a chemical factory or a distribution center in Malaysia.

Day one is mostly about verification. We check the anchor bolt positions against the shop drawings, because a 20-millimeter offset on a column base becomes a much bigger problem once the trusses are lifted. We also confirm the concrete strength on the pad footings. If the concrete has not reached the specified grade, the crane cannot sit where we planned, and the whole lifting sequence shifts.

The second and third days are about staging. Prefabricated trusses arrive on flatbed trailers, and we lay them out in the order they will be lifted. This sounds simple, but it matters: if the first truss in the stack is not the first one needed, the crane operator has to shuffle loads, which costs hours. We mark each truss with a colored tag matching the lift sequence, and we keep the bolt kits in labeled bins next to the corresponding truss.

Midweek, the crane arrives. For a span of 30 meters or more, we typically use a 100-ton mobile crane with a luffing jib. The rigging crew checks the slings and shackles before the first pick. The first lift is always the slowest — the signalman and the operator are feeling each other out, and the crew is watching how the truss flexes under its own weight. Once the first two trusses are set and braced, the rhythm picks up.

What tends to slip on day four and five is the secondary steel. Purlins, bracing, and eave struts are smaller pieces, but they are what make the structure stable. If the crew rushes the primary trusses and leaves the bracing for later, the frame can move in the wind. We keep a dedicated crew on bracing while the crane crew moves to the next bay. It is slower in the moment, but it means we do not have to re-align anything at the end of the week.

By Friday, we have a clear picture of what the next week will look like. The first bay is framed and braced, the crane is booked for the next lift, and the sheeting crew has started measuring for the roof panels. The week ends with a short review: what took longer than expected, what went faster, and what needs to change in the lift plan. That review is where the real lessons live.