Knocking through wall, structural engineer or builder first?

Bendy_House

I'm trying to remember the order this exact job took when I discovered that the wall was solid block in my sis's house, and not the anticipated stud... So it was pretty clear it was structural.

I think it was a 'Building Notice' procedure. This cost something like £180, and the BCO came out to have a look and confirmed it was structural. He said I'd need an SE to provide calcs for a suitable beam. I asked him if he could recommend one, and he said he wasn't allowed to. When I gave a disappointed "Oh...", he then said "I do know of a couple in the area, but obviously I'm not 'recommending' them..."

Anyhoo, I called them both up. One said "Yup, not prob - that'll be ~£400..." and the other said "It's a small job - I can pop in on the way home when I'm in the locality. It'll be, ooh, around £95..."

The latter guy duly called in, spent a good half hour having a nice chat, and took me through the pros and cons of steel vs timber lintels - he said timber made more sense in this case. He provided sketches and calcs for both, a builder came in and fitted the timber lintel and took down the unwanted blocks in a day, and I made good the job afterwards. Oh, and the BCO popped in again to see the lintel, and was pleased.

I now realise that was exceptionally easy and lucky for us.

Obviously, lhg, if it ain't structural, you'll save a bit of cost and hassle, so I guess that is the first thing to ascertain. How to? You can often get a pretty good idea from looking at your down and upstairs floor plans, but a builder should also be able to work this out pretty quickly.

Doozergirl

daivid said:

At some point in the project you will need an structural engineer (or civil who does this work) as you need a definitive answer as to wether support will be needed and if so you will need calculations and plans. 

With all respect to the previous posters who have shown themselves to be very knowledgeable on many many occasions I don't think talk of 'is there a wall above?' is particularly helpful. Absolutely the presence of a solid wall above is a big clue but if your upstairs walls are lightweight then they all can be sitting happily on the beams and presence of a wall below is just chance. More importantly the lack of a wall above doesn't tell you support is not needed. For my knock through an rsj was needed to support a long span that was to be created by the removal of the supporting wall. I don't think my straw filled (yes really!) upstairs walls make up that much of the load (and none of them are above the removed wall).

The OP has a wall above the wall they want to remove.   It was specific advice, not general.  No one said 'is there a wall above', we were told in the OP.  No one said it was load bearing, they were told to consult a SE by everyone, which IS particularly helpful because it is the correct advice.  

If they didn't have a wall above, the detail of my reply would have changed slightly but almost certainly still involved an SE.  As it is, they don't have a wall
above so I didn't choose to confuse them with a range of IFTT scenarios.  

Bendy_House

Lhg, that seems the best approach.

Use Facebook and other methods (like visiting builders merchants, asking at houses in the locality that are clearly having building work done, etc) for recommended SEs. Drop them all an email, with a link to the house. Ask them for a ballpark figure.

Remember, our two quotes were £400 and £95, one of which I consider borderline exploitative, and one very generous.

Section62

Bendy_House said:

Remember, our two quotes were £400 and £95, one of which I consider borderline exploitative, and one very generous.

According to a nice leaflet which arrived with my water bill the other day, it costs on average £279 to unblock a drain and £265 to cut out and replace 2m of copper pipe.

I could do both jobs myself for a fraction of that cost, and would expect to take less than an hour to do either.

So I'm intrigued why you think a degree-level educated professional with on-costs (e.g. insurance, professional fees, CPD, VAT etc) would be borderline exploiting their customers by charging £400 for a job which involves a site visit (plus travel time/costs) and at least a couple of hours back in the office drawing up plans, doing the calculations, then checking it all, plus being available to deal with any subsequent queries.

Obviously, if you could do the job to an equal standard yourself......

By the way, stud walls can be structural.  And lots of solid block walls aren't structural.  The materials used aren't a reliable guide to function.

Bendy_House

Section62 said:

According to a nice leaflet which arrived with my water bill the other day, it costs on average £279 to unblock a drain and £265 to cut out and replace 2m of copper pipe.

I could do both jobs myself for a fraction of that cost, and would expect to take less than an hour to do either.

So I'm intrigued why you think a degree-level educated professional with on-costs (e.g. insurance, professional fees, CPD, VAT etc) would be borderline exploiting their customers by charging £400 for a job which involves a site visit (plus travel time/costs) and at least a couple of hours back in the office drawing up plans, doing the calculations, then checking it all, plus being available to deal with any subsequent queries.

Obviously, if you could do the job to an equal standard yourself......

By the way, stud walls can be structural.  And lots of solid block walls aren't structural.  The materials used aren't a reliable guide to function.

This was almost 10 years ago, and whilst I appreciate that these folk are well qualified, let's be honest - these breadandbutter calcs are essentially pulled from a list; '2m opening, timber frame above, joists running in yay direction = 'print''.

The SE's charge was more than the builder cost to remove the wall and fit the lintel.

I considered it one of those "I really can't be bovvered with this, but if you really want to, get ready to dig quite deeply..." type quotes that are often referred to on here.

Expensive these days? Not so much. Back then? Yes. Imv.

And thanks for the heads-up that stud walls can also be structural.

Section62

Bendy_House said:

This was almost 10 years ago, and whilst I appreciate that these folk are well qualified, let's be honest - these breadandbutter calcs are essentially pulled from a list; '2m opening, timber frame above, joists running in yay direction = 'print''.

I think that's a good example of how people end up making expensive mistakes in home improvement work.  There's a lot more involved in the structural engineer's job than your description suggests.

Folks assume it is a simple and straightforward task without understanding the underlying complexity of ensuring the safety of people and buildings.

As an example, nowhere in your description is a mention of assessing the potential lateral support function of the wall being removed - doing that properly means having the training and experience to understand how the structure is working. It is where the engineering becomes more art than science, and computer programs and tables only help so much.

Bendy_House said:

The SE's charge was more than the builder cost to remove the wall and fit the lintel.

That doesn't surprise me at all.  The job turned out to be straightforward and you were doing a lot of the work yourself.

You aren't paying for the SE to design something basic, you're paying them to identify and understand the risks and stop you making structural alterations which could cause your sister's home to become uninhabitable, or worst case partially collapsing.

At the point they pick up the phone when a customer asks them for a price they can have only a vague idea of how much work a job is eventually going to require.  As a general rule, I'd be more concerned about anyone who is cheap and can do the job immediately (on their way home even) than I would someone who quotes on the basis of needing to do several hours work and gives themselves a margin for the unexpected.

Bendy_House said:

Expensive these days? Not so much. Back then? Yes. Imv.

YMMV, but 10 years ago the organisation I worked for was charging out chartered engineer's time at about £150 to £200 per hour. That included on-costs, but not profit.  I would have expected to pay less for a jobbing SE doing domestic work - but £95 for the whole job would leave me wondering how they were making a living.  Was it cash work?

Doozergirl

I'd be concerned at £95.  

I've met some really bad SEs in my time.  Both cheap and hugely expensive.  I was talking to a friend about one particularly annoying one who specified a domestic driveway like a runway.  My friend said that he designed foundations for a modular KFC that would withstand a full nuclear blast.  

But £95 was cheap even 10
years ago, especially with drawings.  

My main bugbear is engineers who will not come to site.  You have NO IDEA what secrets this old building is hiding and yet you're prepared to sit at a desk and let builder and client suffer the potential fall out.  Your PII isn't helpful to dead people.  

Most recently proven by a client's architect recommending an SE who wouldn't come to site, but the architect had drawn the house wrong!   The dimensions and pitch of the original roof weren't correct - and this was for a loft conversion. 

stuart45

Lateral support from internal walls is sometimes overlooked. In the past some blocks of old terraced houses have suffered when all the owners knocked out the spine walls

daivid

Doozergirl said:

The OP has a wall above the wall they want to remove…

My apologies, I'd somehow overlooked that detail from their original post. 

daivid

I thought £400 was the going rate for a site visit and straight forward calcs and plan. You are paying for a high level of knowledge and their professional accreditation. As already said don't bother with a SE who wont visit, it is beyond me that they are allowed to produce plans for alterations without having ascertained for themselves what is actually there to start with.