What Does a Structural Engineer Do for Your Extension?

When you remove the rear wall of your kitchen to open up into the new extension, the only thing stopping the bedroom above from dropping through the floor is a steel beam. Your structural engineer is the person who works out exactly what size, type, and position that beam needs to be. Get the calculation wrong, and your house is structurally compromised. Get it right, and nobody ever thinks about it again.

That makes this one of those roles where the value is invisible. You'll pay a few hundred pounds for some paperwork and wonder what you got for it. What you got was a house that stays standing.