When people first need a structural engineer
Almost every domestic instruction we take begins in one of five situations. Knowing which one you are in tells you what to read first.
- You want to change a load path - remove a wall, widen an opening, take out a chimney breast, convert a loft. You need design and calculations, and it is notifiable work.
- Building Control has asked for calculations. This is the most common single trigger, and it usually means someone has started work without a design.
- A surveyor, valuer or lender has referred a structural question to an engineer. That points at the surveys guides rather than these.
- You are building something new and need foundations, a frame or a structure designed from scratch.
- Something has gone wrong and you need to know why - which is an inspection, not a design.
The three things an engineer produces
Whatever the situation, the output is one of three things, and it is worth knowing which you are buying.
- An assessment - an inspection and a written opinion on what a structure is doing and what it means
- A design - calculations, sizes, details and drawings for something to be built or altered
- An approval package - the submission Building Control needs, and the answers to their queries until it is signed off
What it costs
Design work is quoted individually against what the job actually needs, because a single beam over a knocked-through wall and a foundation design on made ground are not comparable pieces of work. You get a fixed figure in writing before anything starts.
A structural survey and report - the assessment side rather than the design side - is a fixed £580 + VAT, with the report inside 10 working days of the inspection, guaranteed.