Unlocking the Secrets of Structural Engineering - An Expert Interview 

Small world being a subscriber I was born and lived in abergavenny up until I was 9 fantastic content Roger very helpful as always 👌

Really interesting to listen to. As an old school Building Surveyor I found many of the points chimed. Look forward to hearing more.

Great interview and consideration with how to to achieve the desired outcome not just design

Blimey that 1/2 hour just flew by, bring on part two

Cracking video 👍👍 wish you lived closer John proper interesting genuine bloke 🙌🏻🙌🏻

Very interesting stuff… always learning something useful! 👍🏼😉

Thanks Rodger what a wide range of subjects you cover

Interesting video Roger - thanks. One or two points that John made I was not quite understanding. However, informative none the less.

Looking forward to seeing the 2nd part.

Loved that, would like to hear John on again sometime 👍

Be great to get a few more videos like this, I'm a building surveyor and find the structural engineering videos really informative and interesting. Keep it up!

Unsung heroes of architectural design,

Awesome material, thanks for that!

When we were buying a property 20 odd years ago, had the full survey done, and they suggested a structural engineer to confirm certain points. That sale fell through due to our buyer messing us about, but as we didn't need a mortgage, we used the structural engineer for a walk around for a set fee. Saved us buying a shit house etc and tons cheaper than a full survey each time. Will do this again next time.

I’ve seen plenty of older brick houses with noticeably darker bricks below the damp proof course during wet months. The barrier is definitely stopping rising damp.

Hes a diamond that guy, we need more of him, a very interesting person. I have to say that I was suprised when my architect later said we now needed a structural engineer to do some roofing calcs. When he did the extension drawings. I also believed that's what I was paying the architect for. I'm sure it wasn't like this in the 70's.

I enjoyed this long form chat and John was a great guest on the show - he probably has much more to offer.👍 Change of subject: ‘Where’s James’? How is he doing? Used to love his featured projects.😀👍

For more on stress concentration round windows refer back to the original Comet airliner design ... with square windows.

I was sat in a meeting with the lead engineer on the Wimbledon roof from Ove Arup on the day it jammed and got skewed by the wind. His face went from white to grey by the end of the phone call. The immediate problem was how to release the roof and the tensions that were in it but incalculable. I mentioned this, he nodded, and left the meeting. 😁

Would vote on it's a ventilation issue. The way moisture was beading on the underside of the floor boards looks like condensation. Air bricks are only effective with cross flow achieved. When air moves outside it creates negative pressure on one side of the building and the air pulled out from under the floor then pulls in fresh air from the opposite side. Doesn't matter how many airbricks are around the bay if there's nothing on the opposing sides of the house/ the sub floor void is not clear / other airbricks have got blocked. With the other side being back garden, is there a patio / planting built right up/ over the airbricks there? As others have said the floor isn't insulated, but is sealed now by the newer flooring on top. Well heated room above when the fires on. Cold space underneath. Forms a condensation point when its not ventilated.

Enjoyed this but I am a piling design engineer so it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday for me 😂 nice to see engineering being represented on the channel.

You can avoid those huge steel beams (and renting out the huge crane) on a loft conversion by using a telebeam system. Basically it’s a series of prefab steel A frames that bolt together on site. The sections of each a frame are light enough to manhandle or pulley up to the roof.

I am adding a 1m front extension and yes, we needed a structural engineer

Roger, I think a lot of people would love to see this kind of video with Peter Ward, similar to what you did with Heat Geek. What do you reckon? Can we get him on?

Great channel 👍

We used a structural engineer to do a design so we could remove a big supporting wall in our house He saved us a fortune and loads of time, because he was able to design it using timber beams and posts which were way cheaper and easier to install than steel, and no lead time on materials either. And far easier to box in.

It’d be great if you could do an up to date video regarding building materials & what your thoughts are on them either going up more or possibly coming down in price Roger in the next year. I’ve delayed my full house renovation for 18months now as the increase in materials & quite often labour just makes it impossible. Will have to re apply for planning come autumn. We were never trying to add value to our hone, more just happy to break even & have it how we wanted but with the price’s how they are it’d probably put us in negative equity.

I'll catch the entire thing later tonight, but having gone through the planning stage for an extension it's been very very complicated and I thought I knew what I needed to do, how wrong I was, every few weeks there's a new thing that I needed to have added to the plans 🤦

Were is part 2? More of this please. Maybe also talk to architects. But more expert talk please.

Very interesting. More load 🤔 Rodger increases safety by a factor 10 .... puts wallet on top 🎯

Great video Roger and John. Im a qualified chartered structural engineer and thought that John did an excellent job in his explanation and communication of matters discussed. In the domestic market, very often Structural Engineers will be criticized for 'beams being too big'. This isn't done so to cover our asses, rather a solution is selected which is compliant with relevant codes of practice which try to anticipate realistic worst case scenarios. Easy to bash the size of a new beam untill the wall above starts to crack due to the weight of snow on the roof and a room full of people. Errors of course will unfortunately be made, but on the whole a Structural Engineer should be looking to save you money in the long run.

the distance between expansion joints(usually 12 mtrs in brickwork but no more than 15mtr depends on openings, weird but more openings more joints, stress points) isn't related to the elevation drawing, its a total length, however if a return is less than 1mtr an expansion joint should be placed in the corner

Looking through the comments I think it seems to me many are missing a very good reason for using one. Great defence against claims for negligence, you employed as far as you could be reasonably aware a competent person. Also I imagine if there is a failure and the calculations /advice you could claim against their insurance. Your insurance may also require that you use one for certain aspects of your work. I had to employ one once to inspect a wall. He made me laugh at every report he made. Never ever could you get a straight answer always shall we say sitting on the fence or perhaps it should be wall. I have a legal background and could spot it easily. I think many would not.

Cracking video

Hi mate question for you if possible be great to get a reply please.Ok doing a barn bungalow conversion .zinc roof its brick built so going to do a block work skin inside and go overboard and all of the insulation everywhere . The building regs have not specified that I must have green energy however, I’m going to install a new gas supply electric supply all new services to the property and so on . Shall I just go with the norm efficient, boiler, underfloor, heating (log burner)and so on or a combination of green energy . And if so, which one would you go for solar panels? Hot water solar? Heat pump ? Because they have not specified that I need to have this do I hang it out for a while to see if all of the systems improve? then add something later. difficult one. 🤷🏻‍♂️ or just stick with installing a new traditional system and go over the top with things like insulated plasterboard as well ? Be great if you can have a think on this and get back to me. Much appreciated. what would you do 🤔

Salt from washing up liquid……..try one of the premium brands…..very eco friendly……no salts…👍🚀

I'm surprised it's not been mentioned about using lime to prevent damp. Take the barn conversion for example, I would imagine that the internals have been plastered with a cementitious board or plaster, if they used a lime plaster, I believe they wouldn't have half the problems with damp. Same for old Victoria buildings that now have damp, most of them have been repointed and re plastered with cementious material, which doesn't alow the walls to breath. Instead of moisture and vapour passing through the lime it now has to pass through the cement mortar or plaster. This is much harder for the moisture vapour to do, so the path of least resistance is through the brick work, which inter causes spawling on external brick work and damp on internal finishes.

We had an architect 7ys ago who seemed to be a decent person at the start, took about 3 weeks to produce something in electronic format for us to look at and emailed us which we couldn't open, When I asked for paper prints to approve it was going to cost us £40 to print and post. I went into work and found a guy in the office who had access to his own CAD software but only print on A3 for free. We looked over the prints and requested changes of stuff we specifically did not ask for, we just wanted simply basic design to keep costs down and he was rather abrupt like he knew best. After another couple of weeks we had an email to say he needs to get a structural engineer to work out the roof design. And when I asked why he wasn't doing it he then broke the news that it going to cost about £1500 if the design was straight forward. I was furious but had no choice so reluctantly. agreed. Many weeks passed and eventually about 15 drawings in electronic form appeared in an email. Again I asked for paper but it would be a further figure of around £150. The drawings were mostly A2. In the end I paid £30 on line, I just forwarded the email with contents. The drawings were of good quality, I cant knock that, but I would never pass this architects details on to any colleagues, I think he is a pretentious idiot who preys on peoples lack of building knowledge. I can see why he drive about in some top of the range 4x4. I ended up paying over £8000 for all this once other little extra bits crept in, never again. I'll just move. I was relieved to be rid of him.

The main thing that I learnt from Pete Wards Warm Dry Home book that really made me think was how can a DPC, slate bitumen or whatever, actually fail? Especially fail to the degree of the whole bottom of your wall becomes soaked. The worst failure you could have with slate for example would be a little crack from building movement (its thousands of years old for christ sake) Your telling me that a little crack in a slate DPC can cause the entirety of your wall to become soaked and require full damp proofing. No chance! Can capillary action cause moisture to rise through the capillaries of brick? I think more lab scientific testing is needed. I have never see a study during my brief university research that it can given a common bricks pore structure.

That was a very interesting video, thoroughly enjoyed that Rog 👏🏽👏🏽🧱👍🏽

Just doing a chimney removal , we found what the structural engineer thought was there was different . So called him out again to redo his mistaken calculations, charged the customers full price again for his f#*k up

Roger, you talked too much on this mate. Very interesting guy!

lime mortar was self healing

Structural engineers email you a sketch with some numbers on it and you send them 350 quid. Happy days.

🤔 an insurance policy 🎯

Is structural engineer a new modern thing? My ground floor joist are just laid on top of great big rocks/stone no mortar no nothing! 1890's build btw atleast that's what it says outside.

As a practicing structural engineer, I can advise young ones to kindly avoid this profession. We engineers are grossly underpaid even though we are responsible for people’s lives and safety! And we pay to get a masters, licensing etc too. Talk about return on investment! The stress and deadline pressures are unbelievable in this job too! I hope every structural engineer leaves, and a demand for us occurs and that we get paid what we deserve! We are underselling our intelligence and services honestly! Structural engineers exist because unfortunately we love our job! :)

13:25 there's the hand sign, google loves them

I recently spent £1600 on a surveyor/architect. Then spent £500 ona structural engineer. Give the structural engineer anyday. Got back the £1600. Did our own drawings.

A dozen bottles of champagne and some loose whamin'.

Missed opportunity here to mention the structural engineer's statutory duty to comply with the CDM Regulations. A SE cannot 'ignore' the situation the beam is being used in, and must provide guidance on temporary support requirements 😖

Hopefully presents.

I would say from my experience alot of engineers don't provide practical solutions and give little or no thought to the fitting of the steels, the trend towards using one larger steel with a 10mm plate welded underneath when supporting cavity walls is a good example, it's so much easier to bolt together 2 individual steels. I would love to see one of these engineers manhandle their steel design into place, perhaps they would go back to the office and rethink some of their designs!

Why does Roger look bored?

I think everyone is hoping beer.

Bloody heavy steels! I understand arse covering but it’s getting ridiculous

Hopefully take the blame when the building collapses.

Is it all math?

Take 6 months to spec 2 steels then charge £750 for the hassle without even making a site visit….knew I should have stuck in at school

Very informative and funny to stars amusced men.