costs associated with structural engineers

[permanent hearing damage]

so i am looking to do some pretty extensive remodeling to a house i am in the process of buying to stick a studio in it. specifically, i'm looking to rip the majority of the floor in two rooms between the first floor and basement out entirely to allow for a high ceilinged drum room.

i had a meeting with a contractor last night who stated for proper permits, we would likely need to involve a structural engineer (perhaps an architect also?). does anyone off hand have any idea how much that sorta thing would run? i would imagine they vary a great deal, but i just thought i'd ask folks here.

thanks in advance.

[The Scum]

You're likely going to need a signoff from a licensed professional engineer (that's with a "PE" after their name). They cost about what a lawyer costs...I'd estimate $150 an hour. The number of hours depends on how much work you're asking them to do.

If all they're doing is reviewing and signing off on plans done by someone else, it might only take a couple hours.

If they're also doing a site review, and drawing the plans, that's considerably more work. They might do it for a fixed fee...maybe $2500, but there are a lot of variables that could change that in either direction.

[zorf]

The problem is not the cost per hour of the engineer, the problem is the cost of the work.
No engineer has ever been sued for overspecifiyng, which is too bad IMO.
They don't have to pay for the work, so they cover their rump when writing up
the specs.
This leads to specification creep, where the next engineer takes a previous load calc and then goes one better "just to be safe".
Kind of an arms race.
While you certanly don't want to creat an usafe building, especially when removing supports, ask yourself how many buildings, especially older wood framed buildings, you have seen fall over.
that's what i thought.
hopefully, your contractor has a working relationship with an engineer that is reasonable.

[radiationroom]

Word of warning about floor removal. Not only do floor joists hold up floors, they also tie walls together. Be very very careful when removing joists. You may want to consider leaving some if not all joist work in along with crossleaving them, and/or tying the walls and cross supports together with airplane cable. Just my $0.02 FWIW YMMV

[klangtone]

This isn't your exact situation, but I've been building a studio from the ground up in California over the last year. The structural engineering costs were about $3000. My studio is about 800sqft.

Roy