Are you an individual, organization, or group? Are you in or outside Nigeria? Do you plan of building a residential apartment, commercial, church, hospital, school, etc?
Do you want to know the cost of getting the structural drawing for your building project? If yes, in this article, I have put together the cost of designing a structural drawing in Nigeria from a registered professional.
What is a Structural drawing or design and why is it important to building construction?
Table of Contents
According to Wikipedia, a structural drawing is a type of engineering drawing, a plan or set of plans, and details for how a building or other structure will be built.
Structural drawings are generally prepared by registered professional engineers, and based on information provided by architectural drawings.
The structural drawings are primarily concerned with the load-carrying members of a structure. They outline the size and types of materials to be used, as well as the general demands for connections.
They do not address architectural details like surface finishes, partition walls, or mechanical systems. The structural drawings communicate the design of the building’s structure to the building authority for review.
Structural drawings are also included with a proposed building’s contract documents, which guide contractors in detailing, fabricating, and installing parts of the structure.
One of the major importance of structural design is that it is the muscle that carries a building thereby preventing the building from collapsing.
Secondly, without structural drawings, some building plans may not be approved.
Read: Architect cost for a house plan
The Important of involving a registered professional to design the structural drawing
- Structural design is the backbone or the muscle that carries the building, if any inexperienced or unregistered engineer does the design, it can give the design or the building a negative impact which may lead to building collapse.
- Also, you may spend extra money on correcting errors during construction if the design is done wrongly.
- Structural design is what will make the building structure stand and this is expected to be done by a registered professional (Civil Engineer).
- In other to get it right once and for all, it is advisable that you use an experienced professional.
- Structural drawing signed and seal by a COREN engineer is required (except in bungalows) before a building permit can be granted.
- If the structural design is done wrongly by inexperienced engineers it can cause the building approval to be rejected.
- Using a registered professional will help to avert any building collapse in the nearest future. One of the reasons why buildings collapse these days are because of negligence in the structural aspect of it.
Cost of designing a structural drawing that will meet the building approval requirement
Below is the cost of designing a structural drawing from a registered COREN engineer in Nigeria.
Please note: a standard structural drawing required for building approval is expected to come with
- 5 sets of printed structural drawing
- COREN Seal
- Stamp
- Approval letter (there supposed to be an approval letter from a certified engineer attached with the drawing to show the authenticity of the job)
Read: Home and office interior designer in Nigeria
Cost of designing a structural drawing (Professional fees) in Nigeria
| Building type | Minimum | Maximum |
| 2 bedroom duplex | ₦120,000 | ₦200,000 |
| 3 bedroom duplex | ₦150,000 | ₦250,000 |
| 4 bedroom duplex | ₦200,000 | ₦350,000 |
| 5 bedroom duplex | ₦200,000 | ₦400,000 |
| 5 bedroom semi-detached | ₦300,000 | ₦500,000 |
| 2 story building with 3 bedroom flats all through | ₦200,000 | ₦350,000 |
| 3 story building with 3 & 2 bedroom flats all through | ₦250,000 | ₦400,000 |
The above table cost is the overview of how much it can take to design a structural drawing in Nigeria from a registered professional.
If you want cheaper services, you may consider using newly graduate or junior engineers, I believe the cost of their services may be a little bit cheaper.
But then, that is not recommended, also be mindful of the consequences.
Nevertheless, in other to ascertain the actual cost for your drawing, you may need to request the cost using your architectural drawing.
Without the architectural drawing, the actual cost can’t determine also the structural drawing can only be done using the detailed architectural drawing provided by the architect.
Read: how to get building plan approval in Lagos
Information a structural engineer will be required from a client before proceeding with the design
- Soil test (if is a well-established area or location about the soil condition this may be ignored)
- Location of the building (this can be gotten from the architectural drawing although the engineer may need more details.)
- Detailed architectural drawing
Mistake people make when it comes to involving a registered professional for the design
Some people, instead of paying the professional fee and using a registered professional for the job to get it right once and for all, they alternatively prefer to use an unregistered and inexperienced engineer to do the job. At the end of the day, they end up at square one.
In some cases, some are not even away of the service of a structural engineer. They got to find out only during the time they intend to submit their document for building approval.
Meanwhile, that is for those that actually did want to follow the laydown rules, because in Nigeria many people just buy land and start constructing immediately without following the recommended requirement stipulated by the government.
Some even start the approval process after they have finished the building. By that time everything is already late, the building may end up not been approved and the fate of the owner will be at the mercy of the government.
Read: how to build a house on a small budget in Nigeria
Consequences of NOT involving a registered structural engineer on your supposed building project
- The building might get demolished after some period of time if found any life threaten defect on it.
- The life span of the building may be shorter than expected.
- The high tendency of the building being collapse in the nearest feature.
Our Experience with people
From our experience, people always think little about the design, many times people tend to inquire about the cost of designing a structural drawing for a building project.
Most times when we give them the professional fee for the drawing they tend to get astonished and shout is expensive, they will say, “while will I use such amount to do only the drawing when the real building has not even commence”.
They forgot that the real work is actually done on the design itself, the work on-site is only following what is on the design. If there is an error on the drawing definitely there will be an error in the building construction itself.
Also without the structural drawing, the site engineer cannot deliver a good job.
The reason we think they often acted the way they did is that maybe they never knew that professional services are not cheap.
We also notice that a lot of times people contact us, they already have a specific price range in their mind, but after communication with them, they end up waiting for some time to save up before proceeding with the drawing.
So we decide to write the expected cost of designing a structural drawing in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, structural drawing is not required in all types of buildings. For example, is not required in a bungalow.
But anything more than a bungalow, structural drawing is essential. Building from one-story building to skyscraper all required structural drawings.
Before the design, it is customary that the soil test is carried out in other to ascertain the condition of the soil that is to use for erecting the building, especially if the area is known to be a waterlogged area.
But if it’s a place know to have good soil conditions, there may not be a need to do the soil test.
Hence, if you need the service of registered professionals like Architect, engineers, and QS feel free to get in touch with us.
I hope you find this article useful, if you have any questions, contributions, requests, addition, or corrections please feel free to drop your comment on the comment box below.
You may want to read:
Cost of fencing 2 plots of land in Nigeria
Cost of building a 3 bedroom bungalow
What to know before buying a house in Lagos
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Funmilola Akinbola
2 Mar 2022This article is very helpful and i might contact you one of this days
Planet Ville Real Estate
18 Mar 2022Thank you Funmilola, we will be expecting to hear from you.