Liaison between owner builder and engineer

noviice · Jan 14, 2024 7:19 pm

Would it be wise to collate the material I have saved such as beams and provide them to my engineer in the design phase and ask him to do his best in utilising what I have such as 63 x 45 x 6m lvl and so forth to design my home even if it required a few layout changes
Tia

Pulse · Jan 16, 2024 10:16 pm

I thought you were getting jiggy with the engineer….

no probably not worthwhile, pretty rare to reuse material unless it is new. It might save a few bucks but not worth the hassle… Speaking from experience, I used a turf cutter to take up my lawn during my build… all died except 5m2 and I spent days moving building materials off the newly laid turf, tradies saw a nice open space to stack stuff!

chippy · Jan 17, 2024 6:42 am

noviice

Would it be wise to collate the material I have saved such as beams and provide them to my engineer in the design phase and ask him to do his best in utilising what I have such as 63 x 45 x 6m lvl and so forth to design my home even if it required a few layout changes
Tia

63x45 is hardly a beam. Your engineer is not going to care about factoring in sticks like that.

noviice · Jan 17, 2024 7:12 am

290 x 63

chippy · Jan 17, 2024 7:32 am

I thought you said previously you are a builder?
Anyway. All the beam/structural timber sizes are dictated by your openings and spans. The engineer has to use the required sizes and can't just try and work with your surplus materials.
The only way that would work is right at the design stage if you sized openings and spans to suit what you had. Basically that's an ar$e about way to design a house so I'd suspect you'd just try and use something you had if it fits the desired size. Otherwise sell the materials you've saved to recoup some money and buy new.

noviice · Jan 17, 2024 7:34 am

I have a surplus of a lot of lengths

noviice · Jan 17, 2024 7:36 am

I am even thinking if eliminated returns eithin thr floor plan to avoid costs savings in roof plumbing and going hip roof

chippy · Jan 17, 2024 7:50 am

The engineering is the engineering. It's irrelevant how much material you have. Unless it fits the requirements of your design the engineer can't "make"it work.
You might have heaps of 290x63 but your spans call for 360x63.
Are you hoping to use the surplus materials as joists or lintels? Are you planning on doing your own framing or is it a stick roof? If you're a carpenter you should have a rough idea of what you have where it may be usable from framing and span tables.
This is the first post of yours I've commented on but I have noticed that sometimes your posts are a little vague.