Glossary
Structural engineers and the calculations London work needs
A chartered engineer who designs and certifies the load-bearing structure. Required for any work affecting structure.
A chartered engineer who designs and certifies the load-bearing structure. Required for any work affecting structure.
A structural engineer designs and verifies the load-bearing elements of a building — beams, columns, foundations, retaining structures — and issues calculations that building control checks against Part A. On a domestic project the engineer works from the measured survey and the architectural drawings.
Whenever load paths change: removing or altering a load-bearing wall, forming a new opening, adding a floor in a loft, building an extension whose roof or wall bears on existing structure, underpinning, or excavating a basement. Effectively every London extension and loft conversion.
Load take-down from roof to foundation, beam sizing with deflection and bending checks, padstone and bearing design where a steel lands on masonry, connection details, lateral stability, and foundation design including any tree influence on shrinkable clay. Building control checks these before approval.
The output is a calculation package plus structural drawings and a beam schedule the contractor and the steel fabricator work from.
The engineer needs the architectural layout fixed. Starting structural design before the plan is settled produces rework. On our Complete package the structural design runs alongside the building regulations drawings so that the beam schedule and the construction sections are consistent.
Structural engineer in a Tower Hamlets context: London Borough of Tower Hamlets (Tower Hamlets Council) runs 58 conservation areas including the Spitalfields Conservation Area and the Whitechapel Market Conservation Area, and an Article 4 direction is in force there, so permitted development cannot be assumed. That decides how structural engineer is handled: £548 and 8 weeks for a Tower Hamlets householder application, or £274 for the Lawful Development Certificate that records structural engineer as lawful. The law behind structural engineer sits in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the GPDO 2015 and the Building Regulations 2010.
| Governed by | Approved Document A |
|---|---|
| Typical output | Calculations, structural drawings, beam schedule |
| Needed for | Any change to load paths |
| Checked by | Building control |
| Inputs | Measured survey and fixed architectural layout |
| Our structural calculations from |
No. They check the calculations; they do not produce them.
Almost always, because opening up the rear wall changes the load path.
Once the layout is fixed, so the design is not repeated.
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