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A reporter was called upon to review a design for the removal of a loadbearing wall during the refurbishment of a residence. A builder was already on site but had stopped work since they considered the engineering design to be unsatisfactory and the structural designer was not responding to their queries. The reporter found that the structural design being followed was far from competent.

As part of their final design submission, a cladding subcontractor changed the connection strategy for their cladding system. The project structural engineer did not identify the design change and the cladding loading resulted in excessive deflection and some twisting of the primary perimeter steel.

An inadequate structural design for alterations to a basement led to structural distress within a substantial five-storey townhouse.

This report argues that to achieve the objective of good quality construction that satisfies the design intent there is no substitute for the practice of regular site inspections being conducted by the original design engineer. It questions whether there has been too much reliance on the process of quality assurance systems to the detriment of the quality of the end product.

Remedial works had to be carried out after it was found that steelwork splices on site did not match calculations which were retrospectively provided by a contractor.

Standard seismic retrofit details were used for a building with a non-standard foundation, resulting in inadequate connection of structural shear walls to foundations.

A tenant's structural engineer discovers widespread design and related quality problems on a mandatory seismic retrofit project.

In the correspondent's experience, change is the root of many of the problems discussed in the current debate about standards of construction.

A reporter looked at a project recently where the drawings had been produced by the architect, including a structural design.

A reporter has recently been asked to redesign several projects for domestic extensions/alterations, where two structural problems were found.