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Looking to knock down a wall in my flat and need someone to confirm it's not a structural wall. Don't think it is, as the lady in the flat above has done same thing, but obviously want an engineer to confirm.
I'm assuming it should be a 15 min job, I'm not asking them to quote for work, just tell me it's ok to knock down, and if not what I need to do if I wanted to go ahead anyway, paperwork, warrants etc
Cheapest quote I've had is 280 quid, which seems alot. Is that the going rate? Edinburgh based if it makes any difference?
A builder round last week said it would cost about £150 for us - knocking down external walls, widening internal doors. I have no idea if that's an underestimate
You can knock 15 minutes on the head.
That will be his assessment.
There will be a report to go with.
Plus driving to and from the site.
Numbers I've had for calcs to do a span supporting beam to hold up my roof to allow a large chunk of external wall to disappear was in region of 6-800 -obviously you need no calcs
I expect it'll be far more if he tells me it requires a supporting beam for sure. Didn't realise I would get/need a report if all was fine and dandy however!
A mate had a structural engineer tell him a wall was supporting the roof and needed a steel I beam to take it out. We knew it wasn't. What we did was strip the ceiling each side of the wall to show that nothing was resting on it and called him back so we could show him it wasn't.
So thats what I would do - check it yourself. Open it all up =- then and only then get an engineer in and only if essential for planning / building warrants.
Our engineers charge £120 per hour +vat. The last fit out we did needed 4 columns, and 6 beams calculating, plus sketches for feet, padstone location etc, all in cost £1400+vat
They do small stuff for min call out, but I would imagine inspection and report is going to be 2hrs, so your 280 seems Ok to be honest.
Aye - £280 sounds about right
the other thing I would say is just because the upstairs has taken the same wall out does not mean its not load bearing and might well complicate matters further.
Whether a wall is structural is not as simple as whether it's supporting anything above. It may be stabilising the walls it T's into at each end and/or allow them to resist wind load or diagonal forces from rafters. While it may not have walls above, it may support floor joists, and it's not always obvious which way they run. You'd doubtless want to sue the engineer if you were given bad advice, so the advice has to be in writing and based on chasing down all the possibilities.
Some information here:
https://www.findanengineer.com/faqs.asp
If you do need calculations, etc, the system in Scotland is different to England & Wales - you need a Registered Structural Engineer to certify them.
Just paid £750 for structural engineer to do calcs and drawings for the removal of one big structural wall and creating three openings in non-structural walls (but still needed steels).
I don't know how it works in Scotland, do you have local authority building inspectors? They would answer all of your questions, I imagine
When you come to sell you'll need to provide evidence that its all structurally legit.
Timba - yes there are building control inspectors but austerity measures mean the chances of having a meaningful conversation with one without actually submitting a building warrant application will be very low. Even then they won’t decide if a wall is or isn’t structural, they expect you to come with evidence to support the application. That might be a stuctural engineers report, it could be exploratory investigations (ie a big hole with pictures) or it might be the original design drawings for the house (depending on age).
Didn’t realise I would get/need a report if all was fine and dandy however!
If you need a building warrant life will definitely be easier with one. Sometimes the decision whether you need a building warrant rests on whether that wall is structural or not, ironically the report may effectively mean that you don’t need the report. Even if you don’t need a warrant selling houses without them for modifications can be a pita, so it’s likely a report and then a letter (either from engineer or council) confirming that no warrant is required will be a lot less pain than trying to scrabble around and get them a few weeks before a sale. The rules on when warrants are required are quite complex - eg (in Scotland at least) if a house has three stories a warrant is always required for removing a wall (even a non structural one).
Beware if there are electrics on the wall they may well be expecting to see their removal in the warrant too. Often for not much more than the report the structural engineer will offer to prepare and submit the warrant application (it’s easy for them - they do it every day, they talk the same language and they have the CAD tools to draw it).
For work that I'm currently having done, which is more extensive and required a few beams so that's drawings as well, I paid just over £2000 including VAT. N.B. most of the quotes you get won't include this. Now I doubt that your scope would cost anything like that but is the structural integrity of your flat really an area you want to skimp on?