Building Warrant & Structural Calcs Needed

[Edmund Lowe]

Hello, I am hoping to find someone very able who can provide the building warrant and structural calls on a house in Scotland (planning already granted).

 

Does anybody have a good recommendation? Any recommendations gratefully received. Many thanks

[recoveringbuilder]

Does your architect who got you through planning not have a SE that he works with? 
that’s how we got our calculations done and it works out fine if they’re used to working with each other.

[the_r_sole]

There's 100s possibly 1000s who could do that for you but as ever context is key!

Where in the country are you?

What's the situation with the current/previous architect?

What construction methods are you proposing?

[Omi]

Similar question here. We've got our planning permission (Scottish Borders) and are working through the process of creating the Building Warrant drawings with our Timber Frame supplier. They do have an SE they typically work with (and will provide a separate quote for the service) but have been wondering how I might go about finding my own just to get a comparative quote for the job. It seems http://www.certificationregister.co.uk is the place to go to for finding accredited SEs but just checking if that's right?

 

Another (basic!) question I had was - who does the detailed electrical and plumbing designs? Is it also the SE? Or someone else?

 

Thanks!

[the_r_sole]

If you're getting the Timber frame supplier to do the warrant package then you're probably just as well to go with their engineer, plumbing and electrical would be part of the warrant package so presumably this is your kit manufacturer, drainage would usually be engineers remit

[Omi]

27 minutes ago, the_r_sole said:

plumbing and electrical would be part of the warrant package

 

The drawings we've got thus far only seem to include details of drains as far as plumbing is concerned and high level electrical designs in the form of where the lights, sockets, and switches would go (+circuits between them). So the specific questions I have are:

• Plumbing: Who would determine where the water supply pipes (cold and hot) go? Is that down to the plumber?
• Electrics: Design of the actual cable runs and distribution box, etc. Is that for the electrician? We are hoping to to do as much of the electrical first-fix (e.g., running the cables) we can do ourselved to save costs but would need some kind of a plan to work to.

Thanks!

[the_r_sole]

Building warrant information is only to get a building warrant, it isn't construction information.

For domestic projects the items you're looking at would just be done by a plumber and electrician to meet their relevant codes, if you want them fully designed and specified you'd need an M&E engineer, but they'd probably leave most of those decisions up to a subcontractor anyway!

[recoveringbuilder]

20 minutes ago, Omi said:

 

The drawings we've got thus far only seem to include details of drains as far as plumbing is concerned and high level electrical designs in the form of where the lights, sockets, and switches would go (+circuits between them). So the specific questions I have are:

• Plumbing: Who would determine where the water supply pipes (cold and hot) go? Is that down to the plumber?
• Electrics: Design of the actual cable runs and distribution box, etc. Is that for the electrician? We are hoping to to do as much of the electrical first-fix (e.g., running the cables) we can do ourselved to save costs but would need some kind of a plan to work to.

Thanks!

Get yourself a good plumber and electrician, they know how to set things out but in my experience they don’t like you interfering unless you know exactly what you’re doing so you might find they’re not too happy with you doing first fix yourself. We paid around £3k 3 years ago to have the whole house wired up ( we bought all the components) and it was money well spent knowing it was all done to regulations by someone who knew what they were doing.

[Omi]

Wasn't planning on touching any of the plumbing but thought I should at least be capable of running cables with my Electical Engineering degree ?

 

Anyway, sounds like I need to speak a plumber/electrician and work out the best approach with them. Thanks for the advice!

[the_r_sole]

1 hour ago, Omi said:

Wasn't planning on touching any of the plumbing but thought I should at least be capable of running cables with my Electical Engineering degree ?

 

Anyway, sounds like I need to speak a plumber/electrician and work out the best approach with them. Thanks for the advice!

 

If you are going to do any of the electrical work yourself, remember that you need to get it signed off at the end - I've had some "money saving" clients go down this route in the past and end up paying as much to get it signed off than they would have just getting it done! Remember you are asking an electrician to take on liability for things they haven't seen getting done so unless you get them to inspect at different stages they might not want to sign off someone else's work (especially a home owners)

[ProDave]

All that building control in Scotland (at least here in the Highlands) wants for the electrics is an EIC (Electrical Installation Certificate)  If you plan to issue that yourself, expect a call from building control to verify your qualifications.

 

You really want to find an electrician that will work with you, let you pull the cables and let him view them before they all get covered up and let him test and certify it.

[Omi]

2 hours ago, the_r_sole said:

 

If you are going to do any of the electrical work yourself, remember that you need to get it signed off at the end - I've had some "money saving" clients go down this route in the past and end up paying as much to get it signed off than they would have just getting it done!

 

Thanks - good advice.

 

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

You really want to find an electrician that will work with you, let you pull the cables and let him view them before they all get covered up and let him test and certify it.

 

That was my line of thinking - find someone who's willing to let me do the labour intensive parts and inspect/test to make sure it's been done correctly.