I expect the unexpected! It's just the unwarranted and invented expenses that rankle. A year so far on this. Zoning Plan Review and Committee of Adjustments ($6,360) took six months. Now six weeks and counting for permission to remove one (!) tree that is too close to the proposed foundation. (The required licenced arborist's Tree Protection Plan--$1,202.92-- said it cannot be saved.) Without that permit, a grading plan cannot be done or submitted. Without an approved grading plan, the city will not issue a building permit. Building permit review is estimated at two months. I am always amazed at the posters here who wander down to their City Halls and two weeks later are ready to excavate. But not here in California East!

A good general contractor can probably investigate enough to give you an answer about the complexity, cost and feasibility. However, when you pull a permit they may want to see something from a structural engineer. I think I paid about $500 for an engineer to come out for 15 minutes and verify the GC solution and give me the documentation. You have to be prepared for minor demo work when you have the structural evaluation. They need to know what direction floor joists run, size of joists, span and all the other data needed for the calculations. That structure is usually not visible on the 1st floor without opening up some ceiling areas. They will also follow the structure down to the basement and verify that the load properly transfers to the steel beams, posts and footings. For our wall removal we replaced the existing framed wall with a triple LVL beam, so they also had to figure out what size beam would work, while not intruding too much into the space. You can make LVL beams taller to get more load bearing capacity, or you can put multiple beams side by side. Its fairly simple to figure out the load using LVL manufacturer tables, but then you have to fit it into the existing house. Bruce

Thanks you so much everyone who’s stopped by and share thoughtful insights. As I mentioned earlier, that was my first project as a first time homeowner, it derailed( licensed with states) then hired another licensed GC whom I needed to file a claim against his insurance company and won the case. So I’d say Just thought of hiring GC exhausted me. But Lyndee has some good point and will do more due diligence on choosing contractor in the future. Hence here I am seeking advice what to ask, what needed to included in written contract, what to expect etc with SE. The scope of work is adding a beam on the load bearing wall( central) the house is divided by hallway in the middle, living/dining/kitchen in on one side and the bathroom and bedrooms on the other side of hallway. Think it’s pretty typical craftsmams house in 1910’s. The beam is located in the other side of hallway on the living room side and I think the beam should have been below the bedrooms side because that side has continua wall from back to the front and between those narrow 40” hallway, bedroom side wall is settled about 1” heavy weight without any support. For 1” dip in 100 some plus years house, I would have been okay with it but only the hallway is so narrow, 1” dip in 40” wide is very noticeable. And to make the matter worse, from that point to bedroom edge, it’s dipping another 1”, would have been relatively simpler if the hallway was shallow V meaning the the perimeter walls didn’t settle then I could raise the hallway. I’ve met few SE in the past and they look at the house( not go down to crawl space) told me to better leave the house as is since the settlement had happened very slowly over the years, that I might do more harm than good by disturbing it. Told me structurally okay( but again, only quick glance on the floor level and attic standing at the attic ladder spot) so I moved on. Some were free estimate but some I paid fee. Alas, now that I’m doing a bathroom remodeling wonder if I’ll have better luck this time.

I am a very skeptical person and have trust issues so take this with a grain of salt! we had a contractor come by who insisted that a wall was load bearinto. he also insisted on having his architect take a look because he was sure it would be load bearing. He also emphasized the increase in cost of removing the wall if it was load bearing. we got vibes like this guy was gonna tell us the wall was load bearing whether it was or not, so we hired a structural engineer, who confirmed our suspicion that the wall was not load bearing. We told the contractor and he still was not willing to accept it (we didn’t hire him). In the future, I will always hire my own structural engineer. I don’t think all contractors are trying to drive costs up this way, but I think some do, and it gives me piece of mind to have a statement from someone who is not associated with someone else who is Trying to make a profit on my project (not saying making a profit is wrong, btw).