Frequently asked questions.

A structural survey and report is a fixed £580 + VAT. Focused single-defect inspections, crack monitoring, trial pits and follow-on design work are scoped and quoted individually, in writing, before anything starts.

Ten working days from the inspection, guaranteed. If you are working to an exchange date, tell us when you enquire - we treat the date as a commitment rather than an estimate, and we will say before you commit whether we can meet yours.

No. A RICS homebuyer report or building survey is a broad condition assessment of the whole property by a chartered surveyor. A structural survey is an engineer's inspection of the load-bearing structure specifically - and it is usually the document a lender or surveyor is asking for when they say 'seek advice from a structural engineer'.

Most are not. The great majority of domestic cracking sits in the negligible to slight range of the BRE Digest 251 damage classification - hairline up to around 5mm, repairable during ordinary redecoration, with no effect on stability. What changes the assessment is width beyond that, cracking that passes through bricks rather than mortar, cracking that is measurably growing, or cracking corroborated by sloping floors and sticking doors.

Yes, and it is one of the most valuable things to commission at that stage. You need the seller's permission for access, which is routinely given because a stalled sale helps nobody. If a valuation has been referred, send us the lender's exact wording so the report answers it directly.

Not as its subject. We note damp where it is structurally relevant - rotting a joist end or a timber lintel, corroding wall ties, or driving movement - but a general damp and timber assessment is a surveyor's or a specialist's work. If damp is your main concern, we will say so rather than take the instruction.

By default the buyer, because a report belongs to whoever commissions it and is written for their purposes. Sellers commission them more often than people expect, usually because an unanswered structural question costs more in renegotiation than the report would have. Splitting the cost is a common compromise.

It can identify the evidence and very often rule it out, but no single inspection of cracking can confirm subsidence on its own. Confirmation comes from building a case - damage classification, a desk study of geology and mining records, drainage testing, vegetation assessment, monitoring across the seasons, and trial pits where justified.

We do not publish one, because every report we write is about a real property belonging to a real client. If you want to understand the structure and level of detail before instructing us, ask when you enquire and we will talk you through exactly what yours will contain.

We survey across the whole of Yorkshire - West, North, South and East. Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Harrogate are our busiest patches, but York, Sheffield, Hull, Doncaster, Barnsley, Rotherham and the coast are all covered. If it is in Yorkshire, ask.

Our reports are prepared by experienced engineers and are routinely used in property transactions. If your lender has a specific requirement - for example that the report addresses a particular defect raised in the valuation - send us their wording and we'll make sure the report answers it directly.

The survey is the inspection; the report is the written document you receive afterwards. In practice the terms are used interchangeably - either way, you get an engineer's inspection and a written report.

The lender's valuation is a brief check that the property is worth the loan; even a full RICS survey is a general condition report. When either flags a structural issue, they refer it to a structural engineer - that referral is this survey.

Yes - with the agent's and seller's consent we can inspect at any stage. If a property has an obvious structural question, an early answer can save you a wasted conveyancing spend.

They're closely related. 'Homebuyer' surveys are usually prompted by a specific concern raised during the buying process; a pre-purchase survey is commissioned proactively by the buyer. The inspection and report are similar in depth - the trigger is different.

A RICS homebuyer report or Level 3 building survey is a broad condition assessment of the whole property - roof coverings, services, damp, joinery, and the structure among them. A structural inspection is an engineer looking specifically at the load-bearing structure and giving an engineering judgement on it. When a RICS surveyor writes 'we recommend you consult a structural engineer', a structural inspection is the thing they are recommending.

Yes, and it is one of the most common jobs we do. A defect-specific inspection keeps the cost proportionate to the question. If the engineer arrives and finds the concern is part of a wider pattern, they will tell you on the day rather than quietly widening the scope and the bill.

It depends on the week and where the property is, but Leeds and the surrounding towns are usually quick because we are based here. Tell us your deadline when you enquire - if you are working to an exchange date, say so, and we will tell you honestly whether we can meet it.

Reports produced by a structural engineer are what lenders and their valuers normally ask for when a valuation is referred. If your lender or solicitor has specified particular wording or particular questions to be addressed, send it to us with the enquiry and we will make sure the report answers it directly.

Yes. Commercial alterations, structural appraisals of older commercial stock, mezzanines, and condition inspections for landlords, tenants and purchasers are all regular work for us alongside the residential side.

Width alone is not the test, but it is the starting point. Under the BRE Digest 251 classification, damage up to about 5mm is generally categorised as negligible to slight - repairable with normal decoration and not affecting stability. Above that, and particularly where a crack is widening, passing through bricks rather than mortar, or accompanied by doors and windows sticking and floors sloping, it warrants an engineer's inspection.

Long enough to cover the seasons. Ground and building movement varies through the year, so a monitoring period that spans autumn and spring gives a meaningful record where a few weeks in summer does not. We agree the interval and the duration with you at the start and tell you what each reading is showing as we go.

No. Stepped cracking through mortar joints is simply the path of least resistance in brickwork, and it appears in thermal movement, lintel deflection and settlement as readily as in subsidence. What matters is the direction it widens, what else in the building corroborates it, and whether it is still moving.

Insurers normally want an engineering assessment of cause, and that is what the report gives them. If you have already notified a claim, tell us at the enquiry stage - the insurer may have appointed their own engineer, and it is worth knowing where the report sits in that process before we start.

Very. Seasonal cracking that appears in a dry spell and closes again in winter behaves quite differently from progressive movement, and that difference is exactly what monitoring is designed to capture. It is one of the clearest cases where measurement over time beats a single opinion.

Settlement happens under a building's own load, usually early in its life or after an extension, and it stops. Subsidence is ground movement from an external cause and can continue. In practice the two are told apart by whether the movement is progressive, which is established by monitoring across the seasons rather than from a single inspection - which is why an engineer will rarely give you a definitive answer on a first visit to a live case.

Sometimes, but it is not the region's main story. Shrink-swell clay hazard concentrates in South East England. Across West and South Yorkshire the ground problems that dominate are coal mining legacy - shallow workings and shafts - and made ground such as backfilled opencast, colliery spoil and infilled quarries, along with washout into culverted becks and defective drains. That is why national subsidence advice often does not fit a Yorkshire property.

Frequently yes, particularly where the movement has been investigated, the cause dealt with, and the building shown to be stable. What lenders react badly to is uncertainty. A clear engineering report establishing the cause and the current condition is usually what unlocks the situation, which is why buyers and sellers both commission them.

It may flag the symptoms - cracking, distortion, sloping floors - but a RICS homebuyer or Level 3 survey is not a structural investigation and will normally respond by recommending you consult a structural engineer. That referral is the point at which a subsidence investigation begins.

Mining legacy is central to how we assess ground in this region, and the desk study on a suspected subsidence case includes the mining record for the site. If what you need is a formal coal mining risk assessment for a planning submission, tell us the site and the application and we will confirm what is required before you commission anything.

The inspection can usually be arranged quickly and the report follows within 10 working days, guaranteed. Where monitoring is needed, the honest answer is that a firm conclusion takes months rather than days - because that is what it takes to prove whether movement is continuing, and no engineer can shorten a season.

Almost certainly, yes. Any extension involving new openings in existing walls, beams over openings, foundations or roof alterations needs structural calculations for Building Regulations approval. Your builder can't sign that off themselves - Building Control expects an engineer's design.

Yes - that's one of the most common ways projects come to us. We take the architect's proposed drawings and produce the structural design and calculations to suit, coordinating directly with the architect where needed.

It depends entirely on scope - a single beam calculation is a few hundred pounds; a full house structural design is more. We quote a fixed fee up front, so there are no surprises.

Yes - any structural alteration (new beams, wall removals, new floors, foundations) requires structural calculations as part of your Building Regulations application, whether it's full plans or a building notice.

Straightforward domestic packages are typically fast - we confirm the exact timescale when we quote, and we're used to working around builders' start dates.

Yes, this happens more than you'd think. We can inspect, design retrospectively where the work is sound, and produce the calculations Building Control needs to sign the work off.

Building Control will ask for calculations, so a guessed beam still needs an engineer to check it - and retro-checking an installed beam that turns out undersized is the expensive version. Getting calculations first is quicker and cheaper.

Yes - bearing design is part of the package. The beam is only as good as what it sits on, and crushed masonry under a beam bearing is a classic defect we see in surveys.

Yes. Trees and shrinkable clay are the most common reason domestic foundations get complicated. We assess the tree, the soil and the proximity and design a foundation (or justify an existing one) accordingly - often saving significant dig depth over a rule-of-thumb answer.

Usually less urgent than it looks, and occasionally much more. It depends on what the wall retains and what is below it. A garden wall that has leaned for twenty years is a different proposition from one holding a driveway above a path people use. If failure would hurt somebody, keep them off the downhill side and get it assessed; otherwise it is a job to plan rather than panic about.

Almost always water. A retaining wall is designed to hold back soil, and saturated ground weighs far more and pushes far harder than drained ground. Old walls frequently have no weep holes and no drainage layer behind them, so they end up carrying a load nobody designed for. Improving the drainage is often a large part of the fix.

That is a legal question answered by the deeds, not an engineering one. What an engineer can establish is what the wall is retaining, what condition it is in, whether it is moving and what making it safe would involve - which is usually the evidence both parties need before the ownership question can be settled sensibly.

Retaining structures of any size are notifiable structural work and Building Control will want calculations. Height may also bring planning into it, particularly on or near a boundary, and planning and Building Regulations are separate systems - having one does not give you the other.

Yes, and it is a common constraint in tight urban gardens and on terraced sites. It pushes the design towards solutions that do not need a large working area behind the wall - piled or contiguous options, or a reinforced concrete stem built off a toe rather than a heel. The constraint usually decides the wall type more than anything else does.

It is the pattern worth taking seriously. A horizontal crack in the lower third of a retaining wall usually means the wall is bending under lateral pressure from the ground and water behind it, which is where the bending is greatest. That warrants assessment rather than monitoring.

Yes. We submit the package, field the plan-check queries and revise details where required - through to approval. You (or your builder) deal with the site inspections as the build progresses.

Both. Local authority Building Control and registered building control approvers both accept our packages; if you don't have a preference we'll advise what suits the job. Our long working relationship with Building Control teams across the region reflects how much of this work we do.

You can apply for regularisation - retrospective approval. It usually involves opening up parts of the work for inspection and providing engineer's calculations for structural elements. We regularly inspect and produce retrospective structural justification for exactly this situation.

Timber-frame extensions need Building Regulations approval like any other extension. Carports are more nuanced - many open-sided carports under 30m² are exempt, but conditions apply, and planning rules are separate. Ask us before assuming an exemption.

Yes - a large share of our development work is small sites: a house or two on a garden plot, infill sites, small commercial units. The same disciplines apply at every scale, and small sites are often the ones that most need efficient engineering.

You'll need a build-over agreement, and usually drawings showing how the sewer is protected - often lintels or a design that keeps loads off the pipe. We produce build-over details regularly and can handle the application with the water company.

Only if the ground infiltrates - which much of West Yorkshire's clay doesn't. A percolation test answers it definitively. Where soakaways won't work, we design attenuation with a controlled discharge instead; planning authorities accept this where infiltration is demonstrably unviable.

As a rule of thumb from standard guidance: 1:40 for low flows, or down to about 1:80 where the run serves at least one WC. Flatter gradients are achievable with designed systems, but that's an engineering decision, not a default.

25mm of drop per metre of pipe run. Over 6 metres, that's 150mm.