Western Building Consultants Employ a number of Chartered Building Engineers, Structural Engineers and Architectural Technologists, if you are looking for structural engineering or Civil solutions in Cardiff then Western Building Consultants can help. Our practice contains Fellow and Chartered members of the chartered institute of Building Engineers.
Structural Beam Design
We can provide structural calculations for steel, timber and glu-lam beams. Usually where a simple opening is required between two rooms or to a domestic extension. The trend at the moment is to remodel your home or commercial premises usually to an open plan layout. To do this often you will require calculations to justify the removal of walls and replacement with a structural member. We provide a simple cost effective service, including a site visit with a price per beam costing. This allows you to easily budget the costs before our visit please contact the office on 01225 789307 to receive our full T&C’s and book in a visit.
Dropped kerb Applications & Highways Planning Conditions
We provide drawings and applications for basic Civil Engineering works such as dropped kerb applications and planning highways conditions such as to alter access etc. New developments and many householders often seek to install a new vehicle access from the public highway. This usually involves installing lower kerbstones with the pavement reconstructed at a new gradient. Drop kerb applications include both the physical lowering of the kerb and permission to allow a vehicle to cross the public footway which otherwise an offence under common law. As the applicant the cost of applying and construction of the dropped kerb is usually paid for by you.
Why do I need to apply for a dropped kerb?
Because you do not own the pavement outside of your house and do not have the right to drive over it, additional dropped kerbs can be seen as increasing highway safety risks. Only a fully designed proposal for a new access should be put forward as it is estimated around 60% of all dropped kerb applications are rejected. Many of these are rejected because a client has chosen to make the application themselves without the services of an engineering consultant.
Soakaway Calculations to BRE 365, drainage strategy & Trial Pit Excavations
Percolation Tests/Soakaway Tests determine whether the ground is suitable for soakaways and sceptic tanks and are becoming increasingly common in planning application conditions. Western Building Consultants can provide an excavation and trial pit service to determine if using the natural strata can work to effectively drain the development.
How do Soakaways work?
Soakaways work by storing the immediate surface water run-off allowing natural dissipation and attenuation. Surface water has been historically disposed of through public sewers or watercourses. Due to flooding issues the government and local authorities such as BANES have discounted the traditional piped approach to draining sites and are replacing them with SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems).
How do you calculate if the Soakaway will work?
To work out a soakaways size and suitability we need to carry out an onsite percolation tests. A trial pit is excavated to represent the soakaway and the time taken for the water level to fall from 75% to 25% repeatedly is used to calculate the Soil Infiltration Rate (m/sec). Utilising this approach we are then able to carryout an offsite Soakaway calculation demonstrating the type of Soakaway and size requirements.
If your development needs a soakaway design or any other of our engineering services please get in contact with our Cardiff office on 02922679366 or email enquiries@westernbuildingconsultants.co.uk
Applications to Welsh Water or other local Water Authorities to build over/near sewers
If you are carrying out an extension or new build property in Cardiff and wish to build over a sewer, you need to get a build over agreement. You may also require an application if you are planning to build footing near to an existing sewer. Welsh Water will not always allow you to build over a sewer so it is important that you employ a consultant such as Western Building Consultants to give you the best chance of engineering a solution that will be acceptable to your local water authority.
Whether you need an agreement to build near a sewer depends on a number of issues, such as depth of the sewer, the diameter/type of sewer and the number of properties it serves. It can sometimes be prudent to instruct us to carry out a consultation or instruct a CCTV survey of the drainage system prior to designing the project as it might not be possible to design an extension or house over the existing pipework.
As sewers are frequently located running along the back of houses, build over agreements are usually needed for extensions. In fact we estimated that when the sewers for adoption regulations were introduced 90% of our householder projects required consent.
Sometimes it is not possible to build over a sewer and the drainage may need to be altered (called a sewer diversion). Sewer diversions are generally quite expensive and have to be carried out by licensed contractors. The water authority will generally require the sewer to be tested on completion and a bond held for a period of time to rectify any issues with the new drain. Western Building Consultants have negotiated several of these types of diversion and produced the drainage drawings to accompany the request for diversion. These have to be designed to an adoptable standard and it is important that a competent engineer is appointed to specify them.
If you need help with any of the aforementioned services please contact Western Building Consultants on 02922679366 or Email Enquiries@westernbuildingconsultants.co.uk.
We’re really happy with the quality and efficiency of service. Maria has made the process of getting the plans for our mid terrace extension feel easy and we’re delighted with the design. Her suggestions will make the living space the best it can be.
Fabulous service from Elizabeth Anderson of Western Building Consultants. Stepped in when we were having difficulties with another service provider, grasped the project needs quickly and produced a quality proposal in a collaborative, proactive and timely fashion. A really enjoyable process made all the better by Elizabeth’s friendly manner and expertise.
“WBC have been professional throughout. Alan Meade in Bath provided a thorough and comprehensive report, identified my repair priorities, explained the technical issues and followed up with very clear and enormously helpful advice as to what I should do next. Would and already have recommended them to others.”
Western were really professional, quick and went above and beyond to give us the designs we wanted as well as keeping us on track with our building plans. Thanks to James and all the team for the excellent work and affordable price.
Top notch service here from Paul Keegan who was super patient with us and when we finally got access for a building condition survey on our new premises, he went above and beyond the call of duty to get our report back to us over a weekend. Thanks WBC you came up trumps for us.
We want to say big thank you to western building consultants. We couldn’t be happier with everything they’ve done for us.
We are a small local building company that were looking for a similar sized company to work with us on many various projects from loft conversions and extensions to structural works of all sizes.
It’s been a relationship that’s worked great from day one. It’s been over a year now of working with western on at least a weekly basis. Whether its the office staff, architects or structural engineers they’ve been second to none. Always helpful and accommodating even throughout this pandemic which must of been a struggle.
I love that we can offer westerns services along side our own and the feed back we get from all of our customers when they’ve had contact with western is great.
In the 20 years I’ve been a builder this company is the best I’ve used and we will continue to use them for the next 20 years.
Ashley
Tweedy Brothers Total Building Services
Exceptional service provided by Maria Simone; she incorporated as many of our requests as possible when designing a beautiful extension for us despite many limits and delays from the planning office. Her professional, thorough and friendly approach made us feel confident that we were in safe hands and we look forward to working with her and the rest of the team.
Have received a great service from Jo at Western Building Consultants so far. She is always very responsive, works extra hard for our tight timeline and kept me updated through out the process and was really quick to understand our project objective.
This is the third time I have worked with Western Building Consultants and as usual they have been a pleasure to work with. I dealt directly with Sam and Jo who did the Structural Calculations and the Drawings respectively for my residential to HMO conversion project. They were accommodating, engaging and professional.
I look forward to the next project!
I had a very positive experience with Western Building Consultants right from the start with requesting a quote from Ebony through to the delivery from Jo. Jo delivered exactly what i needed to a very good standard so much so that i’ve already booked in for another job. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend WBC to others.
Our journey with Western Building consultancy so far has been fantastic! Jo’s patience and ability to understand my scribbles and ridiculous ideas made designing our venture fun instead of daunting. Communication is always prompt, professional and most importantly sincere. I’m really looking forward to how the rest of our project progresses!
I have enjoyed working with Western Building Consultants on a complicated project for about 4 years now. During that time they have without fail given me a high level of customer service, being welcoming, responsive and competent.
As a customer I particularly appreciate that WBC are value for money. They also stick to their quotes and don’t add a lot of extras. Help and advice is always forthcoming generally at no extra charge.
Thank you so much for all your advice today. That was so very helpful, not only with the structure of the property but especially with your comments about the whole set up. I can see that we were within a gnat’s whisker of entering a complete can of worms… Thank you so much for saving us from making a stupid mistake.
Thanks to you both your help in this matter – you were both extremely efficient and accommodating (more than I can say about other companies I contacted).
Your professionalism has been invaluable, thank you.
Thank you for your extremely comprehensive report. It will be of immense help when deciding on the works we would like to carry out on the property. We have decided to take your advice and move into the property and live in it for a while to assess our requirements.
Thank you for your prompt service, could not have asked or expected more. I note your comments and in an ideal world everything would have been 1.
Will not hesitate to recommend you, and will make a point of letting the estate agent know this too.
I just wanted to say thank you very much for your thorough and clear report. It is written in an informative and jargon free way which has made a pretty hefty document ultimately digestible and easy to understand.
Hello Kerry, Many thanks for the report and invoice receipt.
Please pass on my thanks to Paul for the survey. In my working life, I read many stock survey reports – I work with social housing providers to set up their asset management strategies – and this was one of the clearest and most comprehensive I’ve seen.
Dear Paul, Thank you so much for your fast response and the detail in your report is very very good and greatly appreciated. Thank you for your efforts.
Many thanks for your swift and thorough return of this report, we so appreciate you getting this back to us on such a tight turn around this week, and on the first read it seems extremely clear and comprehensive.
Hi Kerry / Paul, Thanks for sending the survey across.
I’d also like to thank you for your excellent service and professionalism. I considered many surveyors before choosing to proceed with you and it’s clear that I made the right choice. I won’t hesitate to recommend you to family, friends and colleagues in the future.
“We have commissioned three building surveys from WBC until we found the house that was right for us and all thanks to you”
I never expected so much detail, the report was really great and there were things I never even considered, even being in the construction trade
The report was brilliant and went into so much detail, having had reports from other surveyors in the past this report was far superior
“Highly recommended. Good customer service over the phone and by email. Very quick: from the initial phone call booking a site visit to me receiving the calculations took only 8 days.”
“We used James Dean …Western Building Consultants as an architect. Very good”
“Good surveyors & structural engineers that we used were www.westernbuildingconsultants.com
We were really happy with them, they came highly recommended by several people”
“Excellent service and help from the initial design/planning stage through to the end of all works”
“I can recommend Western Building Consultants. They are great on structural calculations, advice and technical drawings to whatever extent you want. We used them for advice and calcs for taking out our main load bearing wall downstairs. They were recommended several times over when we started looking.”
“Superb, professional, efficient, friendly, positive”
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