Structural engineer in Berkshire?

[Morris63]

Afternoon folks, well, I've got planning for a double garage with a room over, now need to sort the foundations!

Can anyone recommend a decent structural engineer please? We're in West Berkshire, west of Reading.

I need someone to talk to about the foundations for the planned garage. Site is a slight slope, between a mature willow and a septic tank, on clay soil. Building Control Officer has suggested a raft foundation so I need to get an idea of what's possible.


Thanks,
Steve

[dodgerover]

Raft, pilings, or conventional strip should all work, you can always use some clayboard down the sides of a strip foundation to get over heave.

You can look up online how deep you need to go with respect to the willow.

[Morris63]

Thanks, I've been trying to educate myself by looking at Approved Doc H, the NHBC section 4 guidelines, etc.

The septic tank's the issue really as the BCO was thinking we had to build the garage at least 5 metres from it but couldn't point to any docs that state that. If we have to follow that, the back wall of the garage is against the willow's trunk!

Fair play to him, he suggested asking an SE to convince him that a raft would work closer than 5 metres to the septic tank as that pulls the garage away from the willow's roots.

BCO's on his holidays so I'm trying to have a chat with a helpful SE so I can present a, hopefully, sensible alternative on the BCO's return.

[cortinaman]

Paragraph 1.16 of Section H2 of Approved Document H says that Septic Tanks should be sited at least 7m from any habitable parts of buildings and preferably downslope. So it depends whether your room above the garage is classed as habitable. Do you know where your septic tank discharges to - you don't want to be disrupting the outfall!

Did you get the drawings for planning drawn up by an architect - if you did they ought to be able to recommend a few local engineers.

If not www.istructe.org/find-an-engineer/structural-engineers-near-me/search/ The Institution of Structural Engineers "engineers near me" page ought to help.

Good luck!

[Morris63]

Thanks cortinaman, luckily it's not counted as habitable - especially since I'll fill it with car spares no doubt!

I do know where the outfall pipes run and thankfully they and the leach field are away from the proposed garage site and downhill from it.

Great link - will search through that.

Always happy to hear of recommendations as well though

[eternaloptimist]

I can’t recall the guy my architect pointed me towards, but I’d be interested to see who you end up using.