Structural certification

What certification involves

We inspect and assess the structural adequacy of structural systems and building elements for compliance with Australian Standards and local government requirements. Certification involves an engineer assessing the relevant structural work and providing documentation where the available evidence supports it.

Councils, certifiers, conveyancers and insurers all ask for it at different moments, and the document they want is not always the same one. Telling us why you need it is the fastest way to get the right thing.

What can be certified after the fact

Work already completed can often still be certified, but it depends heavily on what is visible and what documentation exists. Reinforcement that has been poured over cannot be inspected, and where there is no record of what went in, assumptions cannot simply be made in the owner's favour.

Sometimes that means opening something up. Sometimes it means the honest answer is that adequacy cannot be certified on the evidence available. Either way you will be told early, not after the invoice.

When post-construction certification may be required

• Council requires certification of completed structural work
• A retaining wall or structure was built without engineering
• A sale has stalled because a structure is undocumented
• A certifier needs an engineer's sign-off to close out a build