Engineering Design
When it comes to engineering and design we are without question at the top of our game!
Each of our building designs is location-specific and engineered to the appropriate New Zealand (or Pacific Island) Standards using our advanced software design system, Shed Creator.
However, to meet council or local/government department consent requirements, your project will require an independent site-specific engineering review, which will be supplied through X Span. Our team of independent engineers designs all buildings in accordance with the loads of AS/NZS 1170 and AS/NZS4600 and will provide a site-specific PS1 together with supporting engineering calculations, plans, and specifications.
We strive to provide this documentation within 20 working days of receiving your deposit.




The grassroots engineering which makes Shed Creator so powerful is built on a large network of engineering parameters and engineering design criteria, the origins of which are either location-specific or building standards
Our recent advances in engineering for cold-rolled steel C-section portal frames have certainly allowed us to go big in our designs—building spans of 25 meters plus, up to 9 meters in height at the knee, lengths in excess of 100 meters, and varying bay sizes, with individual bay sizes up to 8 meters in width.
Our cold-rolled steel C-Section main portal members range from C150 to C400 section sizes with varying gauges. Dependent on building span and many other environmental factors, including snow, wind and earthquake loadings, these C-Section members form a singular portal or back-to-back portals to create the backbone of our building design structure. We use a ‘Tophat’ design for all roof purlins and wall girts, which ranges in size and gauge, depending on span and other engineering factors.
X Span uses the renowned and market-leading K5S® steel portal bracket system, New Zealand’s first and only BRANZ Tested and Appraised steel portal bracket system. Although the construction concept is nothing new in the industry, the unique qualities of K5S® brackets are that they have been designed to support the maximum capacities of the C-section members connected to them.
Because of this, we can achieve the maximum spans and portal sizes that standard industry-available cold-rolled C-Sections are capable of, all due to the superior strength of the K5S® brackets that support them.
The K5S® brackets’ known capacities allow engineers to incorporate them in building designs without needing to do specific engineering on the individual brackets. All the portal joint brackets have gone through a robust testing program at BRANZ, producing some big surprises that even the engineers didn’t expect!
K5S® provides you with New Zealand’s best strength, with integrity you can trust. You are getting a stronger building, and the K5S® steel portal bracket system will also allow you to build a bigger building without needing knee or apex braces. This system is undoubtedly the best steel portal bracket system on the market!
So there you have it! Our world-class Engineering and Design form the cornerstone of your X Span experience, giving you the Best Product at a Great Price.
Importance Levels
Building authorities, on behalf of the community, regulate the strength of a building’s construction to resist any expected loads, and to adhere to standards of acceptable risk of structural failure for various types and uses of building.
The selection of design actions based on Importance Level is a regulatory obligation, not a discretionary engineering choice. The community expects, and designers and suppliers should strive for, uniform risk of failure for buildings of equal importance. BCA 2008 defines four importance levels:
Level 1. Buildings or structures presenting a low degree of hazard to life and other property in the case of failure.
Level 2. Buildings or structures not included in importance levels 1, 3 or 4.
Level 3. Buildings or structures that are designed to contain a large number of people.
Level 4. Buildings or structures that are essential to post-disaster recovery or associated with hazardous facilities.
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TESTIMONIALS
Hear From Our Valued Clients
Here’s what some of our clients have to say about their experience working with X Span.
Blair AtkinsonMay 1, 2025Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Great company. I'm more than happy to recommend them if you're in the market for a new shed! 5 stars. TJZ CochraneDecember 19, 2024Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Our Xspan shed turned out better than expected, Nira and his team from Xspan Northland were amazing to work with, nothing was ever a problem. End result was exactly as we had planned, thanks so much we would definitely recommend and use there services again Jody HarperApril 21, 2024Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. We want to say a huge thank you to Aron Horton's X Span Auckland team for building us this amazing shed. He was so easy to work with and always communicating with us teilling us how much progress they were making. You couldn't ask for a nicer man to work with! Thank YOU Aron and TEAM !! Dayna ClementNovember 20, 2023Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Tom was great to deal with. Friendly and reliable. From Dayna and Chris. Craig AllpressMay 25, 2023Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Xspan were a great company to deal with. I brought the kitset and built the shed myself and i could not be happier with the result,looks amazing,and super strong.(mine was half cladded and in its most vulnerable stage when cyclone Gabrielle hit us,130+kph wind on top of a hill and it stood strong,nothing moved at all) The Xspan crew were super helpful even though i was building the shed myself,Nira was always willing to help if I needed it. I would fully recommend Xspan to anyone looking at building a new shed and would not look anywhere else if I was to build again.