chimney structural inspection: WHO?

[Shytalkz]

It's not the hourly rate, it's the total cost of the job that clients are interested in, you know. My hourly rates are quite good , but I still don't work out any more expensive than my local competitors, as I only charge what time I spend, not massage the hours upwards to suit monthly targets. And this is a generally cheaper area than Southampton. If I do the drawings (I used to be a draffy aeons ago, never want to give it up), then I charge myself at the technician rate; otherwise those other rates are chargeouts for anyone that I get to freelance for me.

Many of my clients don't actually know my hourly rate to start with, I just give them a price based on them, with those figures for extras/abortives - and I'm not often beaten on a fixed price, even being generous with my anticipated time. No one's baulked as yet, to my knowledge. Don't try and compete with the foreigner merchants: you don't need to (presumably) and, if someone wants a cheapy, cos some muppet with a buckshee outdated copy of TEDDS 8 has given them a knockdown price, let them go to them. There's no point being busy and not making anything.

Interestingly, I was having a convo with a friend who is a fellow OMB today, who charges £40/hr. We compared charges on a loft conversion and came out at about the same figure of £450, but he takes twice as long as me - and he doesn't do a CAD drawing to go with it. I bet my schemes have half the steel in that his do as well, as he is *very* conservative with his design.

Try, particularly with domestic punters, to quantify your levels of fees in terms that they understand. For instance, like how many rooms professionally decorated at, say £300/room, equate to your fee (or Plasma tvs!). It's amazing how they see it as reaso - which it is for the level of risk we carry - once you do that. Point out also that your designs should - if you're not an over the top merchant - pay for your fees in the savings in materials that would otherwise be used.

Don't change that page! The worst that would happen is a hand slap from Mr K at HQ and a requirement to give an undertaking not to do it again

 

[andywc]

hi shytalkz

you're right of course... it's the overall consultants cost that matters rather than the hourly rate... and i like the idea of referring to fees in terms of tangible goods, like a plasma tv... very cool.. he he

i think rivergate have always given an overall fee estimate and like you given hourly rates for the same extras/abortives. we also tend to give clients a detailed schedule of how time is allocated to each part of the design; a bit like a shopping list i suppose so they can see how we have reached the fee estimate. from the feedback we get it does seem that this is mostly well received in that they can see how involved each part of the design is and how much time/money it costs; i suppose it only works at this detail for smaller projects though.

when i'm picking up others mess or checking others calcs it's not the TEDDS printouts i'm seeing.. but stuff from superbeam or prosteel. they're both reasonably inexpensive and last year i arranged that rivergate would buy them to see how others are using them. mostly we use TEDDS [currently v11], masterseries [whatever the latest release is] and other in house software written in mathcad and excel.

after a bit of getting used to i've now used superbeam/prosteel on a few real jobs and other than a few quirks it seems to be a fair package. for us it allows us to break the loading down to the various UDL's, partial, points and variable/trapezoidal loading [all in the proper way]... although this isn't how i see others using it. without exception others just seem to use UDL' and PL's. i've currently no doubt that the output is fair and reasonable to the inputs... and of course it's the inputs that matter. the number of times i've seen others input totally nonsense is vast; and without exception, so far at least, it's been the non-qualified ones, who try and do a few calcs on the side of whatever else they're doing, who get it so so wrong.

i've seen so many posts on many forums that say that structural design isn't rocket science, and for the most part in residential projects it isn't... using a given loading i have no doubt that gcse/a-level or other students could soon pick up the likes of basic flexure and deflection formulae; they're freely available on the net or text books.

the crucial area that these posters seem to overlook is how you achieve the loading to be used and then how to transfer the support loads at the end of the beams down to the foundations. for a simple beam supporting floor and walls the non-qualified's and ill-experienced seem to make the most basic of errors on the loadings, for example, the span of the floor, lathe and plaster ceilings can be heavier than single plasterboard, the wall upstairs is masonry and not stud, or that the wall supports a prop from the roof, etc...

using the example of prosteel, it does refer to how to establish effective lengths in the manual, but i've not yet seen many others use more than 1L... which isn't always the right one!!

and when it comes to supporting the beam... no thought is given to local stress concentrations or stability... and as to how the little lintel on the floor below will respond to a sudden concentration of loading... shudder...

i personally cut my teeth on loft conversions, and for an average [whatever that means] loft conversion in a roof with gable ends requiring the usual upgraded rafters, sometimes a ridge beam, beams to support the new floor, trimming around the stairs and marked up drawings with sketch details, i'd have to agree... our fees would be similar. rivergate don't do cad drawings, we all just strip down the architects cad drawings and mark them all up by hand and then do hand drawn sketch details. i personally haven't used cad much; i've not tried to go beyond exploding blocks or groups and deleting the non structural stuff on architects drawings in order to form the basis of our own... i guess it's a bit like taking the old tracing paper/film drawings and scratching off stuff before we copy it to our own drawing sheets... just vastly quicker!!

talking about loft conversion... since we're way way off topic now any way... when you're dealing with one that's got unknown lintels supporting the old cut roof... do you just span your new floor onto them or do you insert beams between walls/plates or trim around, or just land the new joists on the old plates and not worry about it... when i check others calcs i see others doing both... although at rivergate we tend to recommend avoiding an additional load on them.

i've had the page changed... mr k is a nice chap and i don't want to upset him or any other qualified engineers, if there's risk it could be mis-interpreted.

right.. must get on with work before i get into trouble...

cheers shytalkz

andywc

 

[Bumbly]

We've just paid £350 for a structural engineer (CEng MIStructE) to tell us the kitchen extension was coming away from the house and the roof was sagging, which we knew anyway.

Mind you he did suggest the reasons and the remedy, and saved us £3,000 off the price of the house, which was money well spent in my view.

We used his report in our negotiations.

Now a "full structural survey" (or a**se covering exercise) from a FRICS is "only" ?£750, but we don't bother with those any more. Not worth the paper they're written on. "Of course I can't vouch for the areas I can't see" etc blah blah (which covers everything dodgy).

 

[^woody^]

"Of course I can't vouch for the areas I can't see" etc blah blah (which covers everything dodgy).

That is a standard clause in every professional survey, and its a requirement of the surveyors insurance policy.

If you know anyone who can comment on things he can't actually see, then let us know and I'm sure that person will be a very rich and busy man

Did your £350 survey include looking at the main roof, the damp course at the front, access to the property and land, the fascias, expected life of current coverings and materials, room for potential expansion, suitability for certain use, current statutory permissions, any boundary issues, means of escape and any H&S issues, etc etc?

If it did, you got a bargain

 

[Shytalkz]

You'll find the SEs report will have a also have a caveat about not inspecting woodwork etc: it's a requirement of PI insurers that this is put in the report. Same thing applies with surveyors. Blame the litigious world in which we live for that, it's not a cop-out either by an SE or a surveyor.

 

[Shytalkz]

And as Woodster says, it's horse for courses: SE does the structural bit and that's it; surveyor does all the other stuff, generally deferring to an SE if he percieves there to be a problem with the structure. Occasionally the surveyor thinks he knows what he's doing structurally...and after a few minutes he might recall Merritt v Babb and go "Oh sh*t, best you get an SE to look at the structure, that's not my bag".

 

[^woody^]

He may also recall his two weeks structural training and say "Nah, it will stay up, no problem"