Gabions · Reno Mattresses · Rockfall Netting
The difference is 0.3 mm of wire and 200 g/m² of coating — neither of which you can see, and neither of which shows up in a photo. By the time it shows up, the mesh is in the river and the whole run has to come out.
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Mesh geometry barely varies between factories. Coating does — by a factor of ten in service life. Find your water, then read across. Everything else on this page follows from this one row.
| Where it goes | What the wire needs | Service life | What happens if you save here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresh-water river, canal, dam toe | Galfan (Zn-5%Al) 255 g/m² minimum, or heavy zinc 245 g/m² | 30–50 yrs | Electro-galvanised wire (10–30 g/m²) is perforating inside 5–8 years. You cannot patch a gabion wall — the run comes out. |
| Sea water, estuary, tidal zone | PVC coating 0.5 mm over Galfan core | 25–40 yrs | Bare zinc in salt water is gone in 2–3 years. PVC over plain zinc, with no Galfan under it, fails wherever the sleeve is nicked during filling. |
| Tailings, acidic or sulphate water | PVC 0.5–0.6 mm, welded seams inspected, Galfan core | 15–25 yrs | No bare metal survives here at any coating weight. If a quote for a tailings job offers uncoated wire, it was priced for a different job. |
| Road / rail slope, retaining wall, dry climate | Hot-dip zinc 245 g/m² (EN 10244-2 Class A) | 20–30 yrs | Light zinc looks identical on delivery and rusts through in 8 years — after the road is finished and the wall is loaded. |
| Landscape, urban, visible walls | PVC in colour, or welded mesh in Galfan for a flat face | 20–30 yrs | Woven mesh bulges under stone pressure. For a face people stand next to, welded panels hold the line — see the form table below. |
Coating weights above are the EN 10244-2 requirements for 2.7 mm wire. Thinner wire carries proportionally less coating — which is why wire diameter and coating have to be read together, never separately.
The Number In Your Tender
Most tender documents name one of these three. A factory saying "yes we comply" is worth nothing until you know which clause they're complying with — the standards differ on tolerance, edge wire and twist count.
Europe · CIS tenders often mirror it
Americas · many international projects
Russia · Central Asia · EAEU
Send us the clause your tender quotes. We'll come back with which mills can actually build to it and which are quoting a look-alike — that comparison is the useful part, and it costs you nothing.
Why Quotes Differ By A Third
Ask three Chinese mills for "gabion 2×1×1, 80×100 mesh, 2.7 mm" and the spread is routinely 25–35%. None of them is lying. They are quoting three different products under one description.
| Line item | Cheapest quote | Middle quote | Built to the standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mesh wire | 2.4–2.5 mm, described as 2.7 | 2.7 mm nominal, untested | 2.7 mm, micrometer-checked at 10 points, minimum recorded |
| Coating | Electro-zinc 10–30 g/m² — bright and clean-looking | Hot-dip zinc, weight not stated | Galfan 255 g/m² or zinc 245 g/m², with the A90 / ISO 1460 test report |
| Edge wire | Same gauge as mesh wire | +0.3 mm | +0.4 mm as EN 10223-3 requires — this is the wire that holds the basket square under load |
| Twist | 2½ turns | 3 turns on sampled units | 3 turns, checked across the lot — a short twist unravels from a single broken wire |
| Mesh tolerance | ±16% — visibly uneven openings | ±10% | ±5%, measured on the diagonal |
| Diaphragms | Omitted | One per metre | One per metre, wired in — without them the long face bellies out once filled |
| Lacing wire | Short-supplied, you buy locally at site prices | Supplied loose | Supplied to the calculated length, same coating as the mesh |
The cheapest quote is not a scam. It is a real product, correctly priced, for a job that is not yours — a temporary diversion, a two-season site, a landscape feature nobody loads. The mistake is buying it for a 40-year revetment because the line on the quotation reads the same.
Before You Pay The Balance
Wire diameter and coating weight are both measurable in an afternoon, on the factory floor, before the container is sealed. This is exactly what we do on your behalf — and what we photograph.
Mass-of-coating test — ASTM A90 / ISO 1460
Weigh a measured length of wire, strip the coating chemically, weigh again. The difference divided by surface area gives g/m². This is the only number that settles the argument. Ask for the lab sheet with the sample identified.
Preece copper-sulphate dip
A field test: repeated one-minute dips until copper deposits. Electro-galvanised wire fails in the first or second dip; heavy hot-dip survives many. It won't give you a number, but it separates the two grades in ten minutes.
Wire diameter — micrometer, ten points, record the minimum
Averaging hides an undersized batch. On PVC-coated wire, measure the core separately: the sleeve makes an undersized core measure correct from outside.
Mesh opening on the diagonal, 5% of the lot
Measured across the twist, not along one wire. Out-of-tolerance openings let fill stone migrate, and the wall settles unevenly in the first season.
Twist count and edge-wire gauge, by hand
Count three full turns. Measure the selvedge wire separately from the mesh wire — this substitution is the most common and the least visible.
PVC sleeve thickness and adhesion
Coating gauge for thickness; then bend a sample 180° and look for cracking or sleeve slip. A sleeve that slides on the wire will fill with water and corrode from inside.
Inspection happens while the balance is still unpaid — photos, video and the test sheets come to you first. That sequence is the leverage; after payment there isn't any.
A generic mill certificate is not evidence about your goods. We ask for the coating test on a sample pulled from your production run, identified as such.
Third-party inspection bodies such as BV or QIMA do this work too. If you'd rather use one, we'll host them at the line. What matters is that someone measures.
Pick The Right Shape First
Double-twisted hexagonal, 2×1×1 m. The default for retaining walls and bank protection — one broken wire stays local instead of unzipping the panel.
Ask for a spec →Flat square face for visible architectural walls. Stiffer, neater, less forgiving of settlement — and every weld fails if the coating went on before welding.
Ask for a spec →170–300 mm thick, large footprint. Channel bed and slope armour against scour, where a full basket would be overkill and an obstruction to flow.
Ask for a spec →Long continuous units for river training and emergency closure — including placement under water, where boxes cannot be assembled in position.
Ask for a spec →Draped or anchored slope mesh with cables and plates. Specified by energy absorption, not wire gauge alone — send the geotechnical note.
Send the note →A gabion wall without a filter layer pumps fines out through the stone and undermines itself. Geotextile and geomembrane ship in the same container.
Non-woven geotextile →Freight Is A Spec Decision Too
Baskets ship folded and bundled, so a container fills up on weight long before it runs out of space. That single fact changes which coating and which wire gauge is economical for your distance.
There isn't one on the goods. You pay the factory invoice. We add nothing to it. We earn from China's export VAT rebate — 9–13% depending on the HS code — which the state pays the exporter of record after the goods leave.
It is not a kickback from any factory. No mill pays us anything, which is precisely why we can tell you that the cheapest quote in the table above is the wrong product for your job, instead of selling it to you.
The only thing we do charge for separately is a stand-alone factory audit or inspection when you want one without placing the order through us.
Paperwork That Survives Inspection
A certificate that names a trading company while the goods came from a different mill is the single most common reason a consignment sits at a border. On a tendered project it can also cost you the acceptance.
A90 / ISO 1460 mass-of-coating, on a sample identified as coming from your production lot.
EN 10223-3, ASTM A975 or the GOST reference your tender names — with the clause, not just the standard number.
For EAEU / CIS destinations. Alongside CE where the project is European. Prepared before shipping, not after the goods are stuck.
Producer named on the certificate is the producer that ran your order. We verify this on site — it is the cheapest problem to prevent and the most expensive to discover at the border.
Water chemistry decides it, not budget. Fresh water and dry slopes: Galfan or heavy zinc is enough and costs less in freight. Salt water, tailings, industrial effluent, or anywhere the mesh sits permanently wet: PVC over a Galfan core. PVC over plain zinc is the false economy — the sleeve gets nicked during stone filling and the exposed wire is then bare zinc in the worst possible place.
Send the specification clause and we will come back with which mills can genuinely build to it, which are offering a look-alike, and what the difference costs. If your specification is written to a standard nobody in China builds to economically, we'll tell you that too — it is better learned before the tender than during acceptance.
Fill stone runs roughly 1.25 to 2 times the mesh opening — commonly 100–200 mm for an 80×100 mesh — and it is sourced locally at destination. Shipping stone across an ocean makes no economic sense. What ships from China is the mesh, the lacing wire, the geotextile behind it and the fixings.
If this one is a straight repeat of a standard basket from a mill you already buy from and trust, you don't need us in the middle — say so and we'll leave it alone. Where we earn our place is a specification that has to be verified, several suppliers that have to arrive in one container, or a mill you have not audited.
Production for a standard woven basket is typically a few weeks; PVC-coated and non-standard mesh runs longer. Transit then depends on route — rail into Central Asia and sea to most other destinations differ by weeks and by cost, so we quote both and let the number decide.
Yes — that is the normal shape of these orders. Mesh from one mill, filter fabric from another, lacing wire and fixings from a third, consolidated into one container, one invoice and one set of documents. Quotes, contracts and factory negotiations run in the buyer's own language.
Mesh size, wire diameter, coating, quantity and destination — that is enough to start. If you only have a drawing or a tender clause, send that.
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Ships In The Same Container
The filter layer that stops a gabion wall undermining itself.
Where the structure has to hold water as well as hold ground.
Geogrid, GCL and the rest of the materials that go into the same job.
Where most gabion walls end up: the whole line from cutter to bank armour.