Structural Engineering
Structural engineer reports, calculations and design for homeowners, buyers and builders — from beam sizing for a wall removal to full subsidence investigations.
Structural engineering for homes and property
Survey Merchant provides structural engineers alongside its RICS surveying panel — covering the structural questions that property ownership, buying and building actually raise: Is this crack serious? Can this wall come out? What steel does building control need to see? Why is this floor moving? One instruction, a clear written answer, and calculations or reports the professionals downstream (building control, lenders, insurers, builders) will accept.
Structural engineering services
The work is organised into six services, instructed alone or together: structural engineer reports and inspections for specific defects and pre-purchase concerns; structural calculations for building control approval; load-bearing wall removal and beam design; structural design for extensions and loft conversions; subsidence and movement investigations; and structural crack assessment.
When you need an engineer rather than a surveyor
A Level 3 building survey tells you the condition of the whole building and flags structural concerns; a structural engineer then answers the specific question the survey raises — cause, severity, and the engineered fix. The two work in sequence, and because both sit on one panel, the handover is seamless: our surveyors' reports routinely recommend targeted engineer input, and our engineers see the survey before they inspect. The same applies in reverse for builders: an engineer's report or calculation pack is often the document building control or your buyer's surveyor is waiting for.
Which structural service do you need?
Match the symptom to the starting point: a crack you are worried about goes to a crack assessment; movement flagged in a survey, or sagging floors and bowing walls, to a structural engineer report; a builder waiting on beam sizes to structural calculations; a knock-through to the wall removal service; an extension or loft at drawing stage to structural design; and anything involving an insurer or the word "subsidence" to a movement investigation. Choose wrong and nothing is lost — an assessment that uncovers a bigger question rolls into the fuller service with credit for the work already done, and describing the problem to us costs nothing.
The same engineers also work alongside the panel's wider disciplines: party wall surveyors where beams bear into shared walls or excavation runs close to a neighbour's foundations, and project managers and contract administrators where the structural work sits inside a larger build.
Fees and timescales
Structural engineering work is quoted fixed before instruction — a beam calculation is a defined product, and so is a defect inspection with report. Typical turnaround is 3–5 working days for calculations and 5–10 working days for inspection reports, faster where a purchase or building control deadline demands it. See our structural engineer cost guide for typical figures.
If a structural matter is already in dispute — a negligent design, defective works, a contested insurance claim — the panel's expert witness surveyors provide CPR Part 35 evidence instead.
