FAQ
Everything about working with an outsourced structural team
Answers to what engineering consultancies, fabricators and manufacturers ask before they send us the first task. If yours is missing, write to us: we reply within 24 working hours.
Working under your name
01 Who signs the design and who carries the liability?
You sign, as engineer of record, after your own review. We carry professional indemnity insurance for our work as a subconsultant and we warrant our deliverables to you. We never appear on the issued set unless you want us to.
02 Will you ever contact or approach our client?
No. Non-solicitation is in our standard subconsultancy agreement. The client relationship is yours and stays yours.
03 Can we start with a small task to see the quality?
That is how we prefer to start. Send one real task, a slab, a connection or a check. Within 48 hours you get a scoped offer and within a week the delivered sheet, calibrated to your standard. The calibration sheet is free.
04 How quickly can you scale up?
Two to six engineers within two weeks for a project or a rolling programme, scaled up or down with two weeks’ notice. We work Central European time, which overlaps the entire UK and Nordic working day.
05 Where are you based and where do you work?
We are a structural engineering office in Poland, in the EU, with ten years of delivered buildings behind us. We work for consultancies in the UK, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and for European firms building in the US on detailing scope.
Codes, standards and tools
06 Which codes and national annexes do you design to?
Eurocodes EN 1990 to 1997 with the UK, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Polish national annexes. For US work under ACI and AISC we take detailing and drafting packages under your engineer of record rather than full design.
07 Do you work in our CAD and BIM standard?
Yes. Title block, layers, line weights, bar shape codes, schedule format, naming and folder structure are calibrated on the first sheet and kept for the whole programme. We work in your environment if you prefer.
08 Which file formats do you take and deliver?
We take IFC, RVT, DWG, DXF and PDF. We deliver DWG, DXF and PDF as standard, Revit and IFC models on request, schedules in XLSX, reports in PDF with native files available.
09 How do you handle bar bending schedules?
Schedules are generated from the reinforcement drawing, not typed next to it, so the two cannot disagree. Shape codes to BS 8666 or the standard you specify.
Pricing and contracts
10 How do you price a package?
Fixed price per scoped package for design and detailing; hourly or monthly per engineer for capacity work; per drawing, per tonne or per connection type for detailing programmes. Every price is agreed in writing before we start and changes are priced before they are made.
11 Why are you not the cheapest offer we will receive?
Because the people detailing your slab are the engineers who calculated it, not a drafting pool working from someone else’s numbers. You pay for a set that your reviewer signs, not for a set that your reviewer reworks. Compared with a local hire we are still a fraction of the cost.
12 What contract do you work under?
Your subconsultancy agreement or ours, with NDA, non-solicitation, IP assignment on payment and professional indemnity. We are used to ACE, RIBA-style and Nordic ABK/ABR-type terms.
Data and confidentiality
13 How is our data protected?
NDA before the first file. We can work entirely on your systems via VPN so that nothing leaves your environment. Otherwise files sit on encrypted, access-controlled storage in the EU and are deleted or returned at the end of the engagement.
14 Will our project appear in your portfolio?
Not without your written consent. Everything on this site is anonymised and shown with the permission of the parties involved.
Quality and revisions
15 What does your internal check cover?
Every sheet is checked for legibility, completeness and consistency with the schedule and the calculation before issue. Every calculation carries a proof. You receive our own mark-ups with the set, so you see what we checked.
16 What happens when the architecture changes midway?
We revise within the same set, same numbering, with a revision history. A changed floor plan is a revision with a price agreed upfront, not a new package.
17 How do you handle RFIs from our checker or from site?
Same working day. Site questions are treated as a signal to improve the set, and the answer is issued as a revision, not as an e-mail that gets lost.
Scope and materials
18 Which structures do you take on?
Residential, offices, retail, industrial and logistics halls, public buildings, car parks and basements, precast and modular, existing-building strengthening. Concrete, steel, timber and CLT, composite and masonry.
19 Do you do full design or only detailing?
Both, and everything between: scheme design, detailed design, connection design, reinforcement detailing, BIM, independent checking and calculation reports. You choose the package boundary.
20 Do you take single small tasks?
Yes. A single connection, one slab, one check. Small tasks are how most of our long-term programmes started.
Send one real task. Judge us on your own project.
A scoped offer within 48 hours, the delivered sheet within a week, calibrated to your standard. The calibration sheet is free.