If you fabricate steel in the UK, most takeoff software on the market wasn't built for your drawings. SteelFlo reads UB, UC, PFC, UKA angle, and Celsius/Hybox hollow section callouts directly from PDF drawings — over 900 UK section sizes backed by Blue Book data — and detects the BS/EN standard automatically, no configuration required. You upload the drawing set, review the AI's detections on screen, and export a bill of materials in kg/m and tonnes.
That's the short answer. The rest of this post covers exactly which sections are in the database, how mixed BS/EN drawing sets are handled, and what the pricing looks like against the alternatives UK shops usually consider.
What Do UK Fabricators Need That US-Built Tools Miss?
Most AI takeoff tools were trained on American drawings. Feed them a UK drawing and three things go wrong:
- The section labels don't parse. A tool expecting
W16X26doesn't know what to do with457x191x67 UBor200x100x8 RHS. Best case, it ignores the label. Worst case, it misreads it as something else and the error lands in your tender. - The weights are wrong or missing. Even if a tool recognises "UB" as a beam, it needs the actual kg/m mass from the section tables to turn a count into tonnage. US tools carry AISC tables, not the Blue Book.
- The units fight you. UK estimating runs on millimetres, kg/m, and tonnes. A tool that thinks in feet and lbs/ft forces a conversion step at exactly the point where errors are most expensive.
The fix isn't a bolt-on. It requires the UK section catalogue in the database, the UK naming conventions in the detection layer, and metric display end to end. We wrote up the general argument in why a steel takeoff tool needs multiple standards — this post is the UK-specific detail.
Which UB, UC, PFC and UKA Sections Does SteelFlo Detect?
SteelFlo's UK coverage comes from two catalogue layers: the EN open-section tables (which include the full UK universal beam and column ranges) plus a dedicated UK supplement of 597 sections parsed from SCI P363 Blue Book tables. Here's the open-section coverage:
| Family | Sections in database | Size range | Example callout |
|---|---|---|---|
| UB (universal beams) | 217 | 127x76x13 to 1016x305x487 | 457x191x67 UB |
| UC (universal columns) | 74 | 152x152x23 to the 356x406 series | 254x254x89 UC |
| PFC (parallel flange channels) | 16 | 100x50x10 to 430x100x64 | 260x90x35 PFC |
| UBP (universal bearing piles) | 27 | 203x203x45 to 460x460x304 | 305x305x110 UBP |
| UKA equal angles | 53 | 20x20x3 to 200x200x24 | 150x150x12 L |
| UKA unequal angles | 53 | 40x20x4 to 200x150x18 | 200x100x12 L |
The masses behind those designations match the published tables. A few common ones, straight from the database:
| Section | Mass (kg/m) | Depth (mm) | Width (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| UB 305x165x40 | 40.3 | 303.4 | 165.0 |
| UB 406x178x54 | 54.1 | 402.6 | 177.7 |
| UB 457x191x67 | 67.1 | 453.4 | 189.9 |
| UB 533x210x92 | 92.1 | 533.1 | 209.3 |
| UB 610x229x113 | 113.0 | 607.6 | 228.2 |
| UC 152x152x30 | 30.0 | 157.6 | 152.9 |
| UC 254x254x89 | 88.9 | 260.3 | 256.3 |
| UC 305x305x97 | 96.9 | 307.9 | 305.3 |
Count a drawing with fourteen 457x191x67 UBs at 7.2 m each and the tonnage maths is 14 × 7.2 × 67.1 = 6.76 t — done for you, using the catalogue mass rather than the nominal figure in the name (which, as every estimator knows, is close but not always exact: a "67" UB is actually 67.1 kg/m).
Does It Handle Celsius and Hybox Hot-Finished Hollow Sections?
Yes — this is where the 597-section UK supplement earns its keep. It covers both Celsius (hot-finished to EN 10210-2) and Hybox (cold-formed to EN 10219) ranges:
| Family | Sections | Size range |
|---|---|---|
| SHS (square hollow) | 135 | 25x25 to 400x400 |
| RHS (rectangular hollow) | 228 | 50x25 to 500x300 |
| CHS (circular hollow) | 121 | 26.9 mm to 508 mm OD |
So a callout like 200x100x8 RHS resolves to 35.1 kg/m, 168.3x5 CHS to 20.1 kg/m, 100x100x5 SHS to 14.7 kg/m — all Blue Book values, all physics-validated against section area before they went into the database.
This matters because hollow sections are exactly where generic tools fall over. An American tool sees HSS8X4X1/2 and is happy; show it 250x150x10 RHS and it draws a blank. UK architectural and industrial work is full of SHS balustrade posts, CHS bracing, and RHS purlins — if your takeoff tool can't count them, you're back to counting them by hand.
What About Mixed Sets: EN Sections on UK Projects?
UK projects increasingly mix section families. A European consultant specifies HEB columns; a UK fabricator details the connections in UB/UC; the misc steel package uses UPN channels from a continental supplier. One drawing set, two naming standards.
SteelFlo detects the standard per drawing set automatically and carries the full EN catalogue alongside the UK one — IPE, HEA/HEB/HEM, HL, HD, UPE, UPN, and EN angles, over 1,100 European sections in total. (Fabricators working primarily to EN sections have their own guide: steel takeoff software for Europe.) A drawing that mixes HEB 300 and 533x210x92 UB gets both resolved to correct masses in the same takeoff. If you regularly see American W-shapes on European-influenced drawings, the W-shape metric equivalents reference covers how those map across.
Across all six supported standards (AISC, BS/IS, EN, AS/NZS, GB, and cold-formed CFS/SSMA), the database holds 4,500+ sections — the broadest coverage of any takeoff tool we're aware of. More background on the multi-standard build-out is in steel takeoffs beyond AISC.
How Does Automatic Standard Detection Work on UK Drawings?
From the user side, it's invisible — and that's the point. You upload the PDF; SteelFlo works out whether it's looking at UK, European, American, or Australian steel notation and applies the right section catalogue. No dropdown, no project template, no "select your region" step to get wrong.
Every detected member gets a bounding box drawn on the actual drawing. The count is the number of boxes — if there are seven boxes labelled 457x191x67 UB, the BOM says seven. There's no hidden inference or "typical of" multiplication. You review the boxes on screen, confirm or reject each group, and correct anything the AI missed. That review step is why we publish accuracy as 95–99% — that's AI detection plus human verification, not a raw-AI number, and we think that's the only honest way to state it.
Scanned and rasterised drawings — common with older UK sets and consultant-issued PDFs — are handled too, not just vector CAD exports.
How Does $399/Month Compare to the UK Alternatives?
SteelFlo Pro is $399/month — roughly £310 at current rates. Here's the honest comparison against what UK shops actually use today:
| Option | Typical cost | Steel-aware? | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manual takeoff (highlighters or PDF markup) | Estimator time: 4–12 hrs per tender | Yes (the human) | Doesn't scale; misses happen at 9pm on tender day |
| Generic on-screen measurement tools | £250–£1,500/yr per seat | No | You still identify and count every member yourself |
| Outsourced takeoff services | £150–£500+ per drawing set | Yes | Days of turnaround; no good for a 48-hour tender |
| SteelFlo Pro | $399/mo (~£310) | Yes — UK sections native | Monthly cost only pays off if you tender regularly |
The break-even question is straightforward: if a senior estimator costs your business £40–£60/hour and AI-assisted takeoff saves even one working day per month across your tenders, the subscription covers itself. If you price two or three jobs a week, the saving is a multiple of that. If you tender once a quarter, stay manual — the maths doesn't support software, ours or anyone's.
There's no per-seat trap and no annual lock-in, and the first 3 takeoffs are free, so you can run a real UK drawing set through it before any money changes hands. For the full feature rundown, see the steel takeoff software overview.
FAQ
Does SteelFlo output metric weights for UK drawings?
Yes. On BS/EN drawing sets, weights display in kg/m and totals in kilograms/tonnes throughout the review screen, the exported cut list, and the priced estimate. You won't be handed lbs/ft and left to convert.
Are the section weights actual Blue Book values or nominal?
Catalogue values. The database stores the published mass per metre (e.g. UB 457x191x67 at 67.1 kg/m, PFC 300x100x46 at 45.5 kg/m), not the rounded nominal from the designation. For tonnage on a big package, that difference is real money.
Does SteelFlo produce CE/UKCA marking documentation?
No — and be wary of any takeoff tool that claims to. CE/UKCA marking under EN 1090 is about your factory production control, welding qualifications, and DoP paperwork. SteelFlo gives you an accurate, reviewable bill of materials that feeds that process; the execution-class documentation stays with your FPC system.
Can I export to StruMIS, Tekla PowerFab, or other UK MRP systems?
Exports come out as CSV with designation, count, length, unit mass, and total mass per line — the fields MRP and production-control imports expect. Any system that accepts CSV import (which covers the common UK MRP packages) can take the output. There's also a highlighted PDF export so the workshop can see exactly which members were counted, and where.
Does it handle drawings that mix imperial and metric sections?
Yes. Standard detection is automatic per drawing set, and the database carries all six standards simultaneously, so a set that mixes UB/UC with EN or even AISC callouts resolves each member against the correct table.
The fastest way to find out whether this works on your drawings is to try your drawings. Upload a UK drawing set — UB/UC frames, RHS/SHS misc steel, scanned or vector — and see what comes back. Your first 3 takeoffs are free, no card required: start a takeoff.