The bulk of our services involve working directly with developers, architects, architectural designers, builders, and real estate agents, and we are also available directly to homeowners, new home buyers or home sellers and home designers. We have experience working with homeowners who are out of the country, so there is no limitation on your current location.
We welcome your structural consultancy requirements, whether large or small. Some recent projects we have worked on include shop fitting, structural assessments, house repair design, new build design, pre-purchase structural inspections, geotechnical investigations, right through to larger projects for commercial and industrial premises such as DSA ( Detailed Structural Assessment ). We maintain a focus on residential structural services, yet welcome all enquiries.
We often say; “We’ll go where our customers go”. Although this may not always be possible, we are in no way restricted to the Canterbury region. The Cephas Rock team are open-minded and enjoy new challenges and locations. Contact us today and we would be happy to consult with you on your requirements wherever in New Zealand you are based. This may depend on on-site construction monitoring, which we can do, or can assign to an engineer convenient to your location. To date have worked on projects as far North as Auckland, as well as South, in Wanaka and Tekapo. In addition, we have experience working remotely with customers overseas who own property here in New Zealand. We are also in the process of opening another office in Melbourne, Australia.
We can work with the house owner, whether you are Christchurch itself, far flung corners of the country, or even overseas. We can also work with a property manager, builder, architect or manager – whom ever is responsible for the building.
Our initial goal is to have clearly defined needs and goals for the project going forward, so that we can ensure plans are structured, clear, undertaken as specified, compliant, and signed off.
The role of the structural engineer is key in successful, safe and compliant construction repairs, rebuilds and maintenance. Some building companies will provide their own structural engineer, however in most cases you can nominate your own, independent structural engineer and give the friendly team at Cephas Rock a call for our expert advice.
We often work alongside an architect on preliminary plans, and they will advise what they need from us in the planning stage, whether it be a design for foundations, bracing or a combination of this and other structural feature design. The result of this is often that we provide a structural drawing of their plan, and we can ever go so far as to assist with building consents, checks and final structural signoff.
Cephas Rock has been involved in over one thousand building design projects. The structural engineering jobs we have undertaken range from ordinary standard houses and multi-unit apartments, up to high-end architecturally designed houses throughout New Zealand. Some of these homes have been designed by well-known architects such as: Andrew Patterson, Peter Beaven, Darren O’Neil and Don Donnithorne.
At Cephas Rock we are enthusiastic about providing structural assessments, and have been engaged by a variety of home owners, buyers and sellers to fulfil insurance and bankings needs by providing home an property assessment reports.
A structural assessment report would generally include the following:
Cephas Rock Limited provides soil testing alongside our structural engineering services. We can determine the soil conditions for your site and assist you with your foundation design. Note: for TC3 zones, you will need Deep Soil Testing.
Following the Canterbury earthquake sequence, the territorial authorities (TA) now requires all non-residential buildings, including multi-unit residential blocks, to obtain a detailed seismic assessment (DSA).
The aim of the evaluation is to assess the damage that the subject building sustained from the seismic events, and to determine if the building is defined as earthquake prone in terms of the Building (Earthquake-prone Bulidings) Amendment Act 2016, taking effect from 1 July 2017.
We provide seismic strengthening design for clients whose building is found to have an NBS of under 34% after the DSA. Generally buildings under 34%NBS require strengthening or demolishing under current legislation. We adopt innovative ways which are cost effective, space saving, and well presented.
In recent years we’ve seen a growth in new owners of earthquake damaged buildings, where the previous owners have moved on without fixing the building. We’ve been working with new owners of damaged buildings and our structural consulting has provided a foundation for undertaking both major and minor repairs; from plans, to building consents, through to repairs checks and signoff.
If you have purchased an earthquake damaged home, we can provide an as-is where-is assessment, advice on economic repairs and construction monitoring. We can also work with your architect, developer or builder so ensure repairs are structurally sound right from the planning stage through to final signoff, including bracing, wind load, snow load, earthquake force resistance, and PS4 Compliance: confirming that the work has been carried out according to the consented plans and building code.
We provide detailed site inspections for various types of construction works, it is often called “construction monitoring” to ensure the build is built as per approved plans and good construction practice. We would also issue producer statement 4 (ps4) as a sign off documents. We also provide construction monitoring for engineer who base outside of Christchurch and have jobs in Christchurch
