Engineer, surveyor, certifier, energy assessor, sometimes a planner. Who your project actually needs, and who looks after them.
The budget in your head probably has two people in it: a builder and an architect. What consultants do I need for a renovation? More than most people expect — and knowing that early is what keeps the budget honest from the start.
For a Brisbane house the list is short and fairly predictable. A land surveyor, so everything else is drawn on real levels. A structural engineer. A building certifier. An energy assessor. And a town planner only where the application genuinely calls for one. Consultant and authority fees are a real line in the budget, and you should see it from the beginning.
The other thing worth knowing early is who employs them. On house projects you'll usually engage and pay most consultants directly, on my recommendation, so you see each fee and their advice runs to you. My job is to brief them, coordinate them, and check the parts still agree.
I'll tell you which consultants your site actually triggers and which it doesn't.
Someone has to hold the whole picture and check each part still agrees with the others — that coordination is the quiet half of the job. You engage the consultants directly on my recommendation, which keeps every fee visible.
One point of contact. You get a recommended list, a brief written for each of them, and someone who reads what comes back and reconciles it — so you're never translating between five specialists who each speak a different language. You already have a job. This one is mine.
You can appoint consultants yourself, or let the builder do it, and on straightforward work it holds together. What you'd be carrying is the reconciling — making sure the engineer's slab suits the surveyor's levels, and the energy report doesn't ask for glazing the design can't take.
I'll tell you which consultants your site actually triggers and which it doesn't, so you're paying for what your project needs and nothing more. You engage them directly on my recommendation, which means you see each fee for what it is and each one's advice belongs to you. Then I brief them, and I read everything that comes back against the design and against each other. That coordination is the part you never see, and it's where the clashes get found — on paper, where sorting them out is easy.
A land surveyor for a contour and detail survey. A structural engineer for footings, beams and new framing. A building certifier for the Building Approval and site inspections. An energy assessor for the compliance report. Then, depending on your site: a town planner, hydraulic or geotechnical engineer, arborist, bushfire or flood consultant, or heritage advice. I'd rather you paid only for what your site actually triggers.
For anything structural, yes, and the roles are genuinely different. I decide where the wall goes and why the room works. The engineer determines what holds it up and signs off on that as their own professional work. The best way to keep that fee sensible is to hand them a resolved design rather than a moving one.
Often not. For a straightforward house application assessed against the City Plan codes, I prepare and lodge the Development Application myself and there's no separate planning fee. A planner earns their keep when an application is genuinely contested — public notification, an argument against an overlay, a difficult character or demolition question.
Fees vary with the size and complexity of the job, and council's lodgement charges sit on top and are set by council — so get a written quote, and I can point you to certifiers who work on this kind of house. The fee buys the Building Approval assessment and the inspections through construction. A certifier assesses the work against the building code, not against the design.
Most commonly on house projects you engage and pay them directly, on my recommendation, and the agreement between us records who is engaging whom. It's the honest structure: you see the actual fee with nothing added, and each consultant's duty runs to you. What I'm responsible for is coordinating them.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.
