ENGINEERING PRICES & TIMING
Structural engineering typically costs 1-5% of the total construction fee
For example, if you were building a house for $1,000,000 the total cost of structural engineering including design and construction monitoring would be approximately $10,000 - $50,000.
As a consultancy service, an engineer prices a project based on the total number of hours they will work on your project. The hourly rate of DTCE are typically in this range (Excl GST)
Director (CPENG)
Associate (CPENG)
Senior Engineer (CPENG)
Senior Engineer
Engineer
Drafter
Administrator
$225
$195
$175
$150
$125
$135
$80
Project types & cost
Each project is different and we price our services individually depending on a number of factors.
The design costs opposite are an estimate for rough budgeting purposes only. Please contact us today for a job specific quote.
Project Type
Initial phone call with engineer
Project scope meeting at DTCE office
Site wind speed calculation
One site visit with site report
Simple house alteration design
Pre-purchase house assessment
House assessment report
Complex or new house design
Initial Seismic Assessment
Detailed Seismic Assessment
Retaining wall
Cost
Free
Free
$700
$500-$1000
$1000-$3000
$1000-$3000
$1500-$5000
$3000-$20,000
$2000-$4000
$5000-$20,000
$3000-$5000
Timeframe
2-3 days
1 week
2 weeks
2-4 weeks
1-2 weeks
2-4 weeks
4-8 weeks
3-6 weeks
5-10 weeks
3-6 weeks
Initial Contact
When you contact DTCE for a quote, we will ask for all documentation relating to the project that you may have. This includes photos if your project involves a structural assessment, or existing plans and proposed plans if your project involves new buildings or alterations.
If you don’t have any of these, don’t worry, we will organise an initial site visit with you to discuss the scope and provide options.
"If for any reason the price and timing of our services do not meet your expectations let us know as we want to continue improving our service and pricing options"
Quotes and Fees agreement
Once we have all the information needed, we will break down the project into structural tasks and estimate how long each task will take. These estimates are built on previous experience from past projects. Since DTCE has been in business for over 30 years, we have most likely had experience pricing many projects like yours, and so understand what is required and how long it is likely to take.
Once this task is completed, our engineer will produce our Short Form Agreement, which contains the cost, scope, and timing of the structural engineering design requirements.
If the Short Form Agreement is acceptable, great! Once you sign and send this back to us we will begin our works, keeping you in close contact with our progress.
If for any reason the price and timing of our services do not meet your expectations let us know as we want to continue improving our service and pricing options.
Construction Monitoring
In our fees agreement FAQ and in step four of our process page, we discuss what is called construction monitoring. Due to variances that are out of our control, such as contractor/builder competency, on site variances, and weather among others, we cannot provide an exact quote for this phase of the project.
However, since we have been in business for over 30 years, and have carried out thousands of projects with construction monitoring we can provide a rough historical estimate.
According to our historical data, construction monitoring costs 40% of the design fees with a standard deviation of 30%.
What this means is that if DTCE quotes $3000 for our structural design services, then it is likely (with 68% probability) that the construction monitoring will cost between $300 and $2,100 on top of our design fees.
