Structural engineer rates?

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Minimum charge for Structural Engineer?

Robin9

Are you just expecting him to turn up , have a quick glance at something and say "it's unsatisfactory"

He/she won't - they are professionals and won;t skimp on an inspection and written report.

£200 an hour plus travel is good value.

phill99

You are not paying for time. You are paying for expertise and for someone to put in writing whether something is satisfactory or not. He is putting his reputation on the line.




Because of that he won't come cheap. And rightly so.

Doozergirl

Our structural engineer is happy to have advice sessions with us.

If something needs calculating then he isn't going to make any recommendations, but if you want someone to come and look and advise if they think there's a problem or not then yes, you can pay for just that time. It usually involves travel so I'm sure an hour is a minimum charge.

Doozergirl

genau wrote: »

Thanks for everybodys input

The structural engineer originally came out and gave some informal advice. The original session was for an hour with no report and this was a fairly serious matter regarding structural issues The reason I'm asking advice is more to do with much simpler issues such as "Should I have some brickwork done because cement mortar has been used with soft bricks in an Edwardian house or is it ok to leave it"

I was wondering if I could get some advice based on 15 to 30 minutes, I suppose 1 hour is a minimum charge in the same way other professionals have to charge a minimum for any job

There's people here who know about that!

roger-w5

professional people are worthy of their fees !

dunroving

Just thought I'd bump this to say I had a structural engineer visit my new house to do a walkaround and look at various things I needed advice on:

Will my loft structures support boarding and if so, how much, where and what sorts of weights can I store up there?

Can I remove an internal wall between bathroom and airing cupboard in order to increase size of the bathroom?

Advice for how to repair a section of wall that was coming away (boxed in section of wall behind external PVC fascia had come away because the masonry nail had shattered the brick, blah blah.)

As he walked around *for about 80 minutes*, he was rabbitting on about various other things - essentially a walking tour of my house and comments on issues he saw as he was walking around. He also picked up on two other minor structural issues. I furiously wrote notes and learned all sorts of things about how my house was constructed.

I received his written report (descriptive letter) today, with his response to the three specific issues I'd invited him to comment on. He also wrote advice on how to correctly sort out one of the other things he had picked up on, with a drawing of how to repair it, etc.

The bill came to a grand total of .... £168. I thought I had mis-read it. Talk about value for money.

I enlisted a structural engineer in Scotland to look at two issues on my house there, he spent 15 minutes maximum at the house and wrote a very brief (albeit very clear) overall assessment that the two issues he looked at were structurally sound. His fee was almost £500!