Thornfield is a cold-formed steel practice. Steel stud framing and the ceilings that hang from it are what we design, every day, and we have deliberately kept our scope that narrow. Wall and ceiling contractors, general contractors, architects, and owners come to us because the work in front of them is the work we do all week.
From our head office in Chilliwack we support projects across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the United States, and our team holds professional engineering registration in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Washington. Our focus is on keeping installation smooth and avoiding conflicts down the line. If that sounds like what your project needs, please reach out.
Exterior Steel Stud Framing
Infill and backup walls, curtain wall framing, parapets, and the cladding support that hangs off them. We size studs and tracks for the governing wind and seismic demands, detail the anchorage into the primary structure, and keep deflection within what the cladding and glazing can actually tolerate. Prefabricated and panelized walls are routine for us, including the lifting and handling cases that govern panel design long before the wall ever sees wind.
Interior Partitions and Bulkheads
Full height partitions, shaft walls, pony walls, and suspended bulkheads. These are the elements that get drawn quickly and cause trouble slowly, so we pay attention to the parts that are easy to miss: how a partial height wall is braced, what a bulkhead hangs from, how a shaft wall behaves under pressure, and what happens where a partition meets a ceiling or a deflection track.
Suspended Ceiling Framing
Drywall ceilings, T-bar grid, bulkhead framing, and the seismic restraint that goes with them. We design the hangers, the bracing, and the connections back to structure, and we are familiar with how the BCBC, CSA S832, and ASTM E580 actually interact for ceilings in British Columbia. Where a ceiling carries equipment, lighting, or architectural elements, those loads are designed for rather than assumed away.
Load-Bearing Cold-Formed Steel
Load-bearing stud walls, cold-formed joists, and multi-storey bearing wall structures. This is where cold-formed steel is least forgiving and where the details matter most: axial and bending interaction, bearing stiffeners and web crippling at supports, continuity through floors, and the cumulative effect of construction tolerances over several storeys.
Consulting and Peer Review
Pre-tender advice, second opinions, peer review, and help interpreting CSA S136 and AISI S100. Contractors bring us in early to get pricing right, and other engineers bring us in when a cold-formed steel question sits outside their day-to-day work. We also review existing framing, assess what is already built, and give a clear answer on whether it works and what to do if it does not.
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