The shop
Sheet metal fabrication, built in DeKalb Mechanical's own shop.
Ductwork built by contractors, for contractors: our own sheet metal shop on Wurlitzer Drive, working galvanized steel, Koolduct, Thermaduct, black iron, stainless, aluminium, clad steel and paint grip into standard and custom duct. SMACNA member.
Chapter 01
The stock on the shelf decides the job before the coil line ever runs.
Galvanized steel covers most of what leaves the building: the everyday rectangular duct and fittings that make up a typical commercial or residential run. Black iron and stainless steel go where galvanized will not hold up, kitchen exhaust and washdown areas where heat or corrosion is the real problem. Aluminium goes out where weight matters more than mass, and clad steel and paint grip leave the shop ready to take a finish coat once they are hung.
Koolduct and Thermaduct are a different category: insulated duct board rather than sheet metal, built for runs where the insulation has to travel with the duct instead of getting wrapped on afterward. Keeping all of it in stock in one building, rather than special ordering a material for a one-off job, is what keeps a bid-list job moving once it is awarded.
A custom duct elbow and fittings on the fabrication bench in DeKalb Mechanical's own sheet metal shop
Most of what leaves the shop is a standard component, built to the drawing rather than pulled off a shelf.
Rectangular ducts, round and spiral pipe, double-wall duct and round double-wall systems, Thermaduct and rooftop curbs all come off the same floor. Most of it is standard components, built to run length and fitting rather than stocked pre-made, which is the difference between what a supply house sells and what a fabrication shop builds.
Custom fabrication is the other half of the floor: a curb cut to a specific rooftop unit, a transition built to clear a beam nobody drew on the plans, or a duct run threaded through a mechanical room with no two walls square to each other. That is not a catalogue part, and it never will be.
Chapter 03
A shop that installs its own duct builds it differently than one that only sells it.
DeKalb Mechanical's fabrication shop produces ductwork built by contractors, for contractors. The team on the bench has worked the field, so a fitting leaves the shop in a state that makes the install easier rather than one more problem to solve on site: seams sealed the way an installer actually wants them, hangers and supports accounted for before the piece is ever loaded on a truck.
We take pride in quick turn-around and a quality product, and the same shop supplies other mechanical contractors as well as our own crews. A contractor working a bid-list job calls the office at (815) 756-6528 the same way our own installers do.
DeKalb Mechanical — In DeKalb since 1991. Call (815) 756-6528.
Off the shelf, off the bench
A look at the stock and the finished product, from inside the same building.
Galvanized, Koolduct, Thermaduct, black iron, stainless, aluminium, clad steel and paint grip, on the shelf and off the bench.
SMACNA member: the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association, the trade association for sheet metal fabricators.