Structural Calculations
Load bearing walls taken out, extensions and attic conversions, with a site visit and a fixed fee quoted first.
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Naas is the county town and the nearest large town to the office, about ten kilometres up the M7 from Newbridge. The engineer who visits a site in Naas is the one who designs the job and signs for it.
We have worked in the town itself, on four houses at Mill Lane off the Sallins Road, designed inside the curtilage of a protected structure. The same office takes on extensions, walls coming out, surveys and certification for homeowners across the town and its estates.
What we do in Naas
Planning and building control
Kildare County Council is the planning authority and the building control authority, at Áras Chill Dara on Devoy Park in Naas, and commencement notices are lodged with it through the national Building Control Management System. The council's offices are in the town itself, and Naas has a Municipal District of its own.
The town is planned under the Naas Local Area Plan 2021 to 2027, which sits under the Kildare County Development Plan 2023 to 2029. The regional strategy names Naas a Key Town, which is why so much of the county's new housing is planned around it. An application that does not show how its surface water and its flood risk are dealt with is likely to come back with a request for further information.
Flooding
The Office of Public Works. The state body that leads flood risk management in Ireland, and publishes the national flood maps on floodinfo.ie. has mapped flood risk in Naas in detail, and the maps are on floodinfo.ie. The council lists a flood relief scheme for the town among its current works, and north of it the council and the Office of Public Works. The state body that leads flood risk management in Ireland, and publishes the national flood maps on floodinfo.ie. have a flood management scheme on the Morell. A site near a watercourse will be asked for a flood risk assessment, and it costs less before the layout is fixed than after a request for further information.
The ground
Most of Kildare is glacial till over limestone: a stiff clay that carries a foundation well and takes water slowly. A soakaway is a test result rather than an assumption, and on a larger site a site investigation comes before the design. We set out what an investigation finds, and what each kind of ground does to a foundation, in What the Ground Decides.