Structural engineer charge -- Help needed!

rainbowqry

I hope someone reading this thread can give some advise. We moved in our current house 2 month ago. There is a pantry in one corner of the kitchen. The kitchen is around 20 sqm (4X5m roughly), and the pantry is around 1/6 of the kitchen. It is in a very awkward position in the kitchen that we can't really make good use of kitchen. So we always wanted to knock down the pantry to make way for a bigger and nicer kitchen from the date we viewed the house.

The problem is the two walls are load bearing and support the bathroom upstairs in the half landing. So we need to put two beam in after the walls are knocked down. We get a ballpark figure of £2500 for knocking down the wall, place new beams etc from the builder. But the best quote we get for structural engineer to do the drawing and calculation is £750 (another one come back with a quote of £1500 plus VAT). I don't know whether this is a reasonable figure? The builder said that this is about the right amount as although it is a small job, the structural engineer normally has a minimum charge.

Does anyone have any idea how much is a reason price for this kind of drawing? Is £750 a reasonable price?

Thanks

Angela

aa4466

The engineer for my new house is charging £50 per hour and my architect thought that this was good value.

rainbowqry

The engineer we found charged £125 for a first visit, but he was not able to tell whether the walls were load bearing because the ceiling was paneled. He did gave us advise afterwards though.

Tucker

It sounds alot. So does the builders quote, but clearly there maybe more to the job than can be gleened from your post.

I got a Structural Engineer to do a visit and then a calc for a 5 metre steel beam when I did my extension. He also did me some drawings for the roof detail and specified how to fit the wall plate to support the new sloping roof, specified all the insulation requirements, timber designs around the velux windows - the lot.

He also gave me his email address so I could email queries, which I did several times and he explained/replied to. Total cost was £300, hence £750 seems pricey.

It might vary depending where you are based to some degree.

rainbowqry

Tucker wrote: »

It sounds alot. So does the builders quote, but clearly there maybe more to the job than can be gleened from your post.

I got a Structural Engineer to do a visit and then a calc for a 5 metre steel beam when I did my extension. He also did me some drawings for the roof detail and specified how to fit the wall plate to support the new sloping roof, specified all the insulation requirements, timber designs around the velux windows - the lot.

He also gave me his email address so I could email queries, which I did several times and he explained/replied to. Total cost was £300, hence £750 seems pricey.

It might vary depending where you are based to some degree.

Thanks Tucker for the quick reply. It is a pretty straightforward job according to the building & engineer. Just knock down the walls and put the beam in as far as I know. We live in Glasgow, not somewhere down south J £300 is more of the amount I would accept. Hubby did phone a guy he got from yellow page and was quoted £100 per beam. But he’s on holiday at the moment. And hubby simply said that is too good to be true …. Confused!

Below is breakdown of one of the quote we got:

• Attend site to carry out the dimensional survey and examine the opened up structure.

• Draw up survey of the existing layout.

• Draw up the proposed layout.

• Prepare calculations for the required new steel beams and padstones.

• Draw up the structural details and specification.

• Check design, drawings and specification.

• Generate SER Certificate of design.

• Issue all relevant documents to client for formal building warrant application.

Time allocated Associate 2hours 2 x £80.00 = £ 160.00

Engineer 3 hours 3 x £55.00 = £ 165.00

Technician 12 hours 12 x £60.00 = £ 720.00
£1045.00

Add 7% expenses £ 73.15

Total £ 1118.15

Discounted to £1000.00 as discussed

All of the above figures are ex vat.

Imp

Down in the South East, I was charged £75 per beam, and £75 for the design for the raft foundation.

As I am an engineer myself (but not structural) all I needed was the calculations and I could do all the drawings etc. myself.

This guy was a one man band who worked out of an office at his home. If you go to a larger firm, then they will have overheads to add on and then you will be looking at the big bucks. At work I was recently charged £1,500 to check the strength of a concrete platform, including one site visit.

Tucker

12 hours - to do what???

Crazy. Most calcs are much the same and they simply adapt a previous one to fit your job. That's what mine did as the first draft had his last clients address on it! It only took him a couple of hours max as 80% of the data in his report is the same in every report.

The whole thing is a bit crazy as in the main it's simply going to tell you what rating of beams you need. In theory you could just go out and buy one that's twice a strong as it needs to be. But the SE calc provides a guarantee that the beams will be fit for the job so long as they are installed as stated and you could sue them if they get it wrong....

I would shop around. I used google and found a one man band, who lived nearby and emailed him and two others to get an indication of what they charge. The one I used said he could do the calc from full drawings if I had them and that was only about £100, so I wouldn't dismiss a quote if it's low. Problem was I didn't have scaled drawings, just my own efforts so a site visit was needed with him measuring up and so on.

Tucker

Oh, forgot to say, I bought my own beams and got the guy who'd done my brickwork to put them in and knock out, with me and his apprentice.

The beams cost me about £250 inc vat and labour was about the same and the hire of the props was £40, so my basic knock through and beams cost less than £600.

That of course didn't include the making good afterwards of course, but might give you an idea of how £2500 seems a tad generous?

fybar

Imp wrote: »

Down in the South East, I was charged £75 per beam, and £75 for the design for the raft foundation.

As I am an engineer myself (but not structural) all I needed was the calculations and I could do all the drawings etc. myself.

This guy was a one man band who worked out of an office at his home. If you go to a larger firm, then they will have overheads to add on and then you will be looking at the big bucks. At work I was recently charged £1,500 to check the strength of a concrete platform, including one site visit.

Hi Imp,

Whereabouts in the South East are you. I'm lookimg for a structural engineer in Southend Essex