Sructural Engineer.

[carrust]

Is it possible to get your money back from a structural engineer who has made a mis-diagnosis of a problem on a house?

[jackthehat]

Can you explain further ?

[milliezoe]

I think you may be able to I believe thay are now more accountable than they used to be they have to have public liability insurance these days

[carrust]

Customer's bungalow has cracked plaster above one window. As they are selling it at the moment, they decided to get an engineers report. He said that it is just cosmetic, & it was caused by having UPVC windows fitted some years ago.
I removed plaster to find internal wall has fallen into the cavity where the ceiling meets the wall. I've investigated all the rooms that share this external wall, & they have the same problem.
It looks as though the original builder failed to install wall plate straps to the wall, thus causing the problem.
I think the engineer missed the problem because the plaster was left in its original position, except over the window.
BTW, can the remedial work be done on insurance?

[jackthehat]

There will be exclusion clauses in the Engineers report; one of which will be the 'reasonableness' of what he can be expected to have discovered.

As the plaster was covering this problem, the Engineer will argue that to discover this defect he would have had to damage/remove the plaster. Such matters may have been excluded from his brief or it may have been stated that he would NOT cause damage to discover such a defect.

Insurance usually does NOT include remedial work for shoddy original work.........

[carrust]

Thank you for the answer Jack. I'm glad it's not my problem.