Why In-House Ductwork Fabrication Beats Outsourcing

When a client asks us why we fabricate our own ductwork instead of buying it in from a supplier, the short answer is: because we have to get it right. A commercial kitchen exhaust system lives or dies on how well every duct section is sized, sealed, and fitted to the space it serves. When we cut and form every piece ourselves, we control that from start to finish. When someone else does it, we don't — and in our experience, that gap is where problems begin.

What Does "In-House Fabrication" Actually Mean?

It means every duct section, every transition piece, every custom elbow or offset that goes into your kitchen exhaust system is designed, measured, cut, and seamed by our own team — not ordered from a third-party sheet-metal shop and delivered to site. We hold our own materials, run our own fabrication, and our engineers are the same people who specified the airflow requirements in the first place.

This matters because a commercial kitchen exhaust duct is not a commodity product. The gauge of the steel, the seam type, the access panel positions, the slope back to the hood — all of these need to be tailored to your grease load, your cooking type, your floor plan, and your authority submissions. A generic duct ordered off a catalogue cannot know any of that.

Why Does Outsourced Ductwork Cause Problems on Site?

We've been called in to sort out more than a few kitchens where a main contractor outsourced the ductwork to whoever quoted cheapest. The pattern is familiar:

• Dimensions are off. The fabricator worked from drawings that were slightly outdated, so sections arrive that don't quite line up with the actual ceiling void or the hood collar. The installer then improvises on site — usually with extra bends that hurt airflow.
• Steel gauge is wrong. Grease duct in a commercial kitchen must meet specific material thickness requirements under local fire safety guidelines. When cost-cutting happens at the fabrication stage, gauge is often the first thing to slip.
• Seams and joints aren't grease-tight. A poorly seamed duct will weep grease over time. That grease migrates into the ceiling void, creates a fire load, and becomes your problem during the next SCDF inspection.
• Lead times blow out. When the fabricator is a separate party, any change — and there are always changes on a live kitchen fit-out — means a new order, a new lead time, and a delayed handover.

On one kitchen we were brought in to remediate, the outsourced ductwork had been installed with the wrong longitudinal seam orientation. Grease was pooling in the seam instead of draining back to the hood. It had been running like that for months before the operator noticed the smell and the build-up. Fixing it meant pulling sections out and refabricating them — a cost and a disruption that could have been avoided entirely.

How Does Our In-House Process Actually Work?

Design and fabrication talk to each other

Because our designers and our fabricators are the same team — or at minimum, sit in the same conversation — there is no translation layer where information gets lost. If the engineer specifies a 600mm × 400mm rectangular duct with a 1-in-50 fall toward the hood, the person cutting the steel knows exactly why that slope matters and checks it. That kind of shared understanding doesn't happen when you email a drawing to an outside shop.

We fabricate to the actual site, not the drawing

Drawings are a guide. Real kitchens have beams, pipes, and surprises that no drawing fully captures. Because we fabricate in-house, we can take a site measurement on a Monday morning and have a revised duct section ready by Tuesday. We don't need to raise a new purchase order or wait for a supplier's production slot.

Every component meets the same compliance standard

We work to NEA, SCDF, and BCA requirements on every job. When we fabricate in-house, we apply those standards at the point of manufacture — not as an afterthought inspection when the duct arrives on a pallet. Steel gauge, seam type, access panel sizing and placement, fire-rated enclosure requirements — all of these are built in, not bolted on.

Does In-House Fabrication Cost More?

Sometimes the upfront material cost is comparable to buying from a supplier. What changes is the total cost of the project. We eliminate the back-and-forth when something doesn't fit. We eliminate the remediation call-backs. We eliminate the situation where an authority inspection finds a non-compliant duct section and the job gets held up while everyone argues about whose fault it is.

We've also seen operators choose the cheaper outsourced option upfront, only to spend more fixing it within the first year of operation. A grease duct that leaks, rattles, or restricts airflow doesn't just cost money to fix — it costs you in cleaning frequency, energy waste from an overworked fan, and the very real risk of a kitchen fire.

What About Replacement and Repair Work?

The in-house advantage doesn't stop at new installations. When an existing duct section fails — whether from corrosion, impact damage, or a grease fire that warped a section — we can fabricate a direct replacement to match the existing system. We stock materials and we don't need to source from outside, which matters enormously when you're running a 24/7 food operation and every hour of downtime is revenue lost.

We also carry our own range of MV fans, motors, variable speed drives, and control panels, so when a repair job turns up a failed component, we're rarely waiting on parts. The whole system — ductwork, mechanical, electrical — is handled by the same people who built it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you fabricate ductwork for an existing kitchen exhaust system that was installed by someone else?

Yes, and we do this regularly. We measure the existing system, identify the non-compliant or damaged sections, and fabricate replacements that tie into what's already there. We always assess the full system first — there's no point fitting a perfect new duct section into a layout that has underlying airflow or compliance issues.

How quickly can you fabricate and install a replacement duct section in an emergency?

We run a 24/7 standby service, and because we fabricate in-house, we can respond to urgent situations far faster than a contractor who has to source materials externally. For straightforward sections, we've turned jobs around within a day. We always confirm the exact scope before committing to a timeline, but our ability to move quickly is a direct result of controlling our own fabrication.

What steel specifications do you use for grease duct fabrication?

We work to the material and gauge requirements set out under Singapore's fire safety and ventilation guidelines. The exact specification depends on the application — duct serving a heavy wok line has different requirements from a light-duty prep kitchen. We always confirm the exact requirement with the relevant authority before quoting, and we document our material specifications as part of every job file.

Do you handle the authority submissions as well as the fabrication?

Yes. We're familiar with NEA, SCDF, and BCA submission requirements for commercial kitchen exhaust systems, and we handle the technical documentation as part of our design-and-build service. Having fabrication in-house means our drawings and specifications accurately reflect what we're actually going to install — which makes submissions cleaner and less likely to require revision.

If you're planning a new kitchen fit-out, a system upgrade, or you've inherited a ductwork installation that's giving you trouble, we're happy to take a look and give you a straight assessment. Reach out to us for a quotation — and remember, our team is on standby around the clock if you need us urgently.