Structural engineer price

Lungboy

I'm in the process of buying a house and we want to knock down the wall between kitchen and dining room. I know we need a structural engineer to assess if it needs an rsj and if so to calculate the size of it. How much should I expect to pay for this? I'm struggling to even find an Istructe registered surveyor where I live in Devon.

missprice

I had similar problem earlier this year.
Main problem was finding someone willing to do such a small job, we needed a chimney breast out calculations.
From memory cost of structural engineer was £280 or maybe £250.
I remember being unimpressed with the price for such a small job but the fella was lovely and had a great idea for staircase that we haven't done but I sorely want to.

Anyway I called my building control dept and asked if they knew of anyone that was willing to do such a small job. They were very careful to say they did not recommend him but he had done plenty of small jobs like mine and his name came up often in similar cases.

Lungboy

Building control is on my to do list for Monday morning :-)

brightontraveller

Most will work either on hourly rate £60 - £120 ph or fixed price Your problem is before you buy it there somewhat limited as to what they can actually investigate within the property without current owners permission,,, Check out online applications in your area for ones that work locally etc,,,

Lungboy

Thanks. From reading more into the subject, do I even need a structural engineer? It sounds like if it's a straightforward install then a decent builder should be able to do it. Does that sound right?

missprice

Lungboy wrote: »

Thanks. From reading more into the subject, do I even need a structural engineer? It sounds like if it's a straightforward install then a decent builder should be able to do it. Does that sound right?

Maybe but to cya I would just take the time and spend the money on SE.
What if its load bearing? Your whole house could fall down for the sake of 2/300 quid.

Although I am fairly certain you need building control to sign it off. I know we did and that was just downstairs chimney breast out, no actual walls were removed. Although a wall was removed and we just needed BC to say OK, no SE was needed for that. But there was no plaster anywhere so the whole "bones" of the building could be seen, and it was obvious that it wasn't a load bearing wall.

Whereas the chimney breast has the upstairs bit still in situ (for now) therefore something had to be put in to hold the whole chimney up.

Lungboy

I called building control this afternoon. For what we have in mind (~6 foot opening) they said it would definitely need a structural engineer, assuming it's found to be load bearing. If it's not then it won't even need building regs.

Cpt_Kenrow

I paid £400 for a similar job in Cornwall.

Turned out when the builder actually removed the wall that the beam went into it was just tongue & groove.
As IMO this therefore wasn't load bearing I haven't informed building control.