Walk into a typical railing company's workshop and you'll see fabrication happening. But where do those railings actually get installed? Almost always by third-party crews — sometimes good ones, sometimes not. The fabricator collects their money when they ship the parts. What happens on site is the GC's problem.
We don't work that way. Every Katena installation is performed by a Katena crew. Same trucks, same uniforms, same people who came out for the site survey. Here's why that decision shapes our entire business.
Quality control end-to-end
When the same company that fabricates the railing also installs it, problems get caught and fixed in real-time. A picket that's 2mm short? Our welder can re-weld it tomorrow morning. With a third-party installer, that same issue means a delay, a call to the fabricator, an argument over whose fault it is, and a 2-week delay while replacement parts ship.
No finger-pointing
When something goes wrong on a project — and on construction sites, something always goes wrong — you want one company to be responsible. With Katena, you don't have to triangulate between the fabricator (who blames the installer), the installer (who blames the fabricator), and the engineer (who blames everyone). We are all three. The buck stops with us.
Crews trained on our specific systems
Every railing system has quirks. Our KTM glass system has a specific channel grouting procedure. Our KTM-DIV aluminum system has a specific welding sequence. A third-party installer learning these on your project means mistakes. Our installers have done thousands of each. They know how to handle the edge cases.
Site cleanliness and behavior
Our crews work in occupied buildings constantly. They know how to protect floors, set up clean staging areas, and treat the building like the residents' home. That's a cultural standard we've built over decades. Third-party install crews vary wildly.
Our installers are full Katena employees with health benefits, profit sharing, and pride in their work. That shows up on your job site.
The trade-off: scheduling flexibility
The one downside: we can't be everywhere at once. We have a finite number of crews. On peak demand weeks we sometimes have to push install schedules out by a week or two. Companies that use subcontractors have more theoretical scheduling flexibility — at the cost of consistency.
Our trade-off has worked out so far. Every general contractor we've worked with twice keeps coming back, because the second project is easier when they remember how the first one went.
Want to talk about installation on your project?
We're happy to coordinate with your project schedule and provide install timing as part of the proposal. Contact us with your project details.
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