The engineer has to talk to the designer, the builder and the certifier. When they don’t, the house never looks like the drawings. We run all four conversations.
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ONE AGREEMENT
Soil test and structural design, inside the plan fee
WE RUN IT
Designer, engineer, certifier and builder in one conversation, start to finish
WHO
Our external RPEQ engineers, coordinated by Fletcher, an engineer by training
YOU RECEIVE
Certified structural plans, ready for construction
A HOUSE ON THE RAISER’S TIMBER · THE NEW STEEL POSTS GOING IN BENEATH IT
Raises and extensions on timber houses that are eighty to a hundred years old. The engineer decides more than the footings: where the steel runs, what the old hardwood can still carry, where the stair lands, and how the house meets a block that was never level.
We are building a house, not a skyscraper, so we do not let it be engineered like one.
Anyone can overdesign a beam and specify something that will never fall down. That is not engineering, it is bad design, and bad design is expensive. A good engineer takes in what is already standing, strengthens what needs it and leaves the rest alone. Because our designer, our engineer and our builder work from the same drawings, the structure costs less to build and goes in without the arguments.
COORDINATED, NOT HANDED OVER
The engineer gets our drawings and a brief on what stays, what goes and what the old frame is already carrying, not a plan and a phone number.
Eighty-year-old hardwood bearers and joists that are sound stay in. A beam that is short of the mark gets strengthened to the right size, not replaced with a portal frame.
Timber where it does not. We know what our crew can lift into place and what costs a fortune to, and the structure is drawn with that in mind.
CHECKED AGAINST THE ESTIMATE
Every beam is checked against the estimate while the engineer is still designing, so the structure never turns up as a surprise in the quote or a change on site.
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Every job starts with a soil test and ends with the engineer inspecting what we built. In between, the structure of a renovation is mostly these five things.
SOIL TEST · SITE CLASSIFICATION
HYDRAULIC · FIRE · CIVIL
CERTIFIED, THEN INSPECTED
HOLLAND PARK, 2023 · RAISED FOR A NEW LOWER LEVEL, THE ORIGINAL HOUSE KEPT ABOVE
01
The posts, steel and bracing that lift a timber house to legal height and hold it there, designed with the stair and the lower level in view.
02
Footings, slab and the structure of the new lower level, sized from the soil report and what the house above will put on them.
03
Tying a new frame to an old one so they move together: the connection is the engineering, not the new room.
04
The beam that replaces the wall, what holds it up, and how the load finds its way to the ground without a steel forest.
05
Where the block falls: the walls that hold it, the steps in the slab, and how the house meets ground that was never level.
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We brief
Our designers hand the engineer a finished set of drawings and a brief: what is being raised, opened, added or kept. Fletcher, an engineer by training, runs the conversation.
They test and design
The soil test comes back in about two weeks; the structural design follows in three to four, and we challenge it against the house and the estimate before it goes anywhere. If a beam comes back bigger than the house needs, it goes back.
The certifier approves
The engineer’s drawings and certificates go into the building approval. The certifier checks the structure against them before we start.
We build from it
Our crew builds to the engineer’s documents, and the engineer inspects the footings and steel at the stages the approval requires.
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Every line of the structure is in the fixed price before you sign.
The footings, the steel and the retaining are in the number at the end of the plan stage rather than in a variation after it.
FIRST MEETING AT THE STUDIO · NO CHARGE · BRING YOUR DRAWINGS
The engineering set, delivered
SITE CLASSIFICATION
CERTIFIED
CERTIFIED
WHERE THE BLOCK NEEDS THEM
AT EACH STAGE OF THE BUILD
BUILT ON ALL OF IT
Inspections are done by the engineer who designed it, at the stages the building approval requires.
Part of the plan stage
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COORPAROO, 2025 · A CHARACTER HOUSE RECONFIGURED INSIDE, THE STREET FRONT KEPT
Engineering sits at the core of the plan package, and the package takes you from drawings to construction.
Soils and structural design sit inside the $10–15K plan agreement, alongside the energy report, the services review and the approvals path. One agreement, run by us, that ends in a fixed price.
Common questions
Does every project need a soil test?
Every raise, extension and new lower level does. Footings designed without one are designed for an assumption, and assumptions are what change the price later.
How long does it take?
The soil report comes back in about two weeks; structural design takes three to four weeks after that. Both sit inside the 6–8 week plan stage.
What if the soil is bad?
Reactive clay and fill are common in Brisbane. They change the footings, not the plan: deeper piers, more steel or a different slab, priced before you sign rather than discovered on site.
Why not just use my own engineer?
You can, and we will build from their documents. Ours are briefed by the people who drew the house and will build it, so the structure is sized for what is there and what our crew can put in place.
Who are the engineers, and who pays them?
External RPEQ structural and geotechnical engineers we have worked with for years. Fletcher trained as an engineer, so the brief and the challenge come from someone who reads the drawings the way they do; the sign-off is always theirs. You pay one plan fee to us and we pay them.
Can I get just the engineering?
Not as a stand-alone service. Engineering sits inside the plan agreement so the structure, the estimate and the approvals are worked out together. If you already have drawings and want us to build them, we run the soils and structural as part of pricing the job.
ONE STUDIO
We design, and we build what we design. The same people draw the house, get it approved and build it.
9 FORSYTH ST,
FAIRFIELD QLD 4103,
AUSTRALIA
Philip QBCC 22698 · Stark QBCC 15229232
MEMBER — MASTER BUILDERS AUSTRALIA
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