Ecotech Engineers Ltd is a UK based structural engineering consultancy working predominantly in the residential sector. We have expertise in the design of all construction materials above and below ground with a key focus on foundation assessment and design for low level housing developments.
We are based in Chesterfield working closely with local and national based Housebuilders covering a wide geographical area including the North East, North West, Derbyshire, Midlands and South Yorkshire. Due to our geographical reach, we have specialist knowledge of undertaking foundation appraisals for difficult sites containing peat, soft clays and historic mining.
We work closely with residential developers to propose the most suitable foundation solutions for future sites based on the site conditions and the Client’s targets on budget, time or buildability. We support our Clients from pre-land purchase to built properties and pride ourselves in the ability to react to our Clients’ needs. This means we provide not only a design role but also a supportive role to help solve unexpected issues that may arise on site and affect proposed structural elements.
With our breadth of knowledge and expertise in the residential sector, we are also able to adapt our engineering and drafting skills to the private sector to aid with extensions, renovations and structural inspections for home owners and prospective home owners.
Ecotech was here!
Meet The Senior Management Team
Laura Holland
MEng(Hons) CEng MICE Structural Engineering and Architecture
Laura Holland graduated from Sheffield University in 2013 with a Masters in Engineering and RIBA Part 1 qualifications. She followed her interest in structural engineering to a graduate role with AECOM in the light industrial sector gaining experience in structural design of all materials, conditional surveys for national rail projects and assisting in the refurbishment of MOD army barracks. She went on to work as a structural engineer at Ecotech Consulting Engineers Ltd following her passion for housing using her past experiences to assist national house builders with large developments and grow the profit of the company.
In 2020, Laura started Ecotech Engineers Ltd following the retirement of her Managing Director and liquidation of Ecotech Consulting Engineers. In the height of the pandemic and at the age of 29, she started the company with the support of loyal clients and family. She has been able to use her ambitious nature to grow the company to where it is now – an award winning consultancy for Outstanding Growth in 2023. Supporting national and local house builders and developers across the UK, engaging in innovative construction projects to push new construction technology to challenge traditional build systems and applying her wealth of knowledge and experience to ensure all her clients are able to achieve their goals for any project big or small.
Her humble and approachable nature has allowed the client base for Ecotech to grow and given a focus for all engineers joining her team to communicate clearly with clients and colleagues to grow better working relationships and achieve collective goals. She is now actively involved with the Chesterfield business community, establishing Ecotech as a trusted consultancy and is always on the look out for the next challenge both professionally and personally.
Josh Conway
MEng(Hons) CEng MIStructE
Josh has had a passion for design and construction from a young age. A regular pastime of building models and drawing up plans would later become a fulfilling career in structural engineering, all starting from his humble upbringing in South Yorkshire. Through his adolescence, Josh also took a keen interest in the world of property development, inspired by supporting his dad to refurbish houses for rent and re-sale. Now with over 10 years of structural engineering experience and attaining Chartered status with the IStructE in 2020, Josh is now proud to be growing and shaping a small consultancy alongside Laura Holland, in the next chapter of Ecotech Engineers Ltd.
Josh studied Civil and Structural Engineering at The University of Sheffield, graduating with a First Class Masters degree in 2013. He started his professional career with the Building Structures team at Atkins, a role which would establish the fundamental technical skills for a career in Structural Engineering. Josh later turned his hand to the role of a contractor, gaining invaluable experience with the engineering enterprise Laing O’Rourke. This part of his career exposed Josh to Modern Methods of Construction, developing a deep understanding of precast concrete and applying it to several high profile projects across the UK.
By 2017, Josh moved back to the world of consulting engineering with WYG (later Tetra Tech) to broaden his design proficiency whilst he worked towards and achieved Chartered Membership. Surrounded by a highly technical team, it was here Josh learnt his eye for detail working on numerous complex building structures, including large-scale steel frames, high-rise concrete buildings, refurbishments and international projects for the foreign commonwealth office.
Following many years of technical and professional development, Josh’s driven and ambitious personality lead him to a new challenge in 2022. Since then, he has been using his knowledge of structural building design and established network to support the growth of this sector within Ecotech Engineers. Josh is able to quickly understand a client’s engineering challenges and is able develop robust and efficient solutions. He is keen to help the company’s new and existing clients to learn about new technologies and construction methods to meet the needs of future building design standards.
Meet the Team
What Ecotech Does
As a structural engineering consultancy, we are able to:
Substructure
- Assess, review and comment on ground investigation reports for both greenfield and brownfield sites.
- Support Residential Developers with land appraisals to aid with bidding on new sites by providing suitable and realistic foundation proposals based on available information.
- Assess and schedule trench fill foundations to suit Warranty Provider’s design manuals and ground conditions.
- Design and detail specialist foundation solutions including reinforced strip foundations to vibro ground improvement, reinforced concrete ground beams to piled solutions, pile setting out and safe working load assessments and reinforced concrete raft foundations.
- Design and detail underpinning schemes.
Superstructure
- Design and detail all superstructure elements in all standard construction materials to both British Standards and Eurocodes, including beams, columns, frames, slabs, retaining walls, masonry screen walls and pumping stations elements to list but a few.
- Undertake structural appraisals of residential properties to Part A of the Building Regulations – Design calculations to submit to Building Control.
- Aid with innovation of new construction methods by providing structural engineering assessments to suit the proposals.
Structural Inspections and Reports
- Undertake structural surveys and monitor cracks within masonry construction.
- Assess and detail appropriate remedial repairs for masonry and concrete elements
Ecotech Values
- Quality: Ecotech delivers quality engineering solutions to exceed the expectations of our Clients
- Teamwork: Ecotech prides itself on the cohesiveness of the design and drafting team to allow us to deliver quality engineering solutions within the project timescales. We extend this ideology of teamwork to the broader project teams we are involved in to benefit the project rather than just our organisation.
- Communication: Ecotech believes that we can only deliver exceptional projects to meet the requirements of our Clients by having clear and open communication with our Clients and within our project team.
Ecotech Aims To
- Deliver quality structural engineering design solutions to suit the requirements of our Client, the constraints of the project and the proposed timescales.
- Clearly communicate our designs with quality drawings and personal direct correspondence between the design team and the Client
- Provide advice to our Clients in design constraints and design proposals to aid the completion of the project and the knowledge of our Client to build strong working relationships.
- Build strong working relationships with Clients to extend the ethos of teamwork to cover the whole project team.
Ecotech Mission Statement
We continue to strive to achieve our company values in all work that we undertake, to build strong working relationships with our Clients and other professionals to ultimately provide quality work on time and in budget.
Employment Opportunities
Employment Opportunities
We are always on the hunt for quality structural engineers and technicians that want to be part of the unique Ecotech team.
If you are interested in finding out more or sharing your CV with us, please contact Laura Holland info@ecotechengineers.co.uk
Case Studies
Bedford Road, Olney
We worked closely with both Vistry Northern Home Counties and Talyor Wimpey to deliver the foundation assessment for a 300 plot development. We were able to effectively translate the ground investigation report to the Developers to recommend the suitable foundation solutions which was a mix of trenchfill foundations and traditional piled plots due to historic limestone mining.
We tailor delivered two high quality trenchfill foundation schedules to suit the two Client’s differing requirements and preferences within the necessary timescales. We undertook all reinforced concrete ground beam design and pile loadings assessments where necessary and aimed to reduce the number of piled plots as much as possible.
We undertook structural appraisals and line load assessments for the Vistry house types, assessed the foundations for the retaining walls and masonry screen walls and continued to support the site team with issues that arose as the development was constructed.
We were commended on our ability to resolve issues with practical engineering solutions, achieve tight deadlines and actively work within the Developer’s engineering team with a positive attitude to challenges.
Large Format Block Innovative Design
We worked closely within the Barratt and David Wilson Homes innovation team to deliver a new prefabrication construction methodology replacing the inner blockwork leaf of a traditionally built masonry house with an aerated concrete panel 2.4m high and 0.6m wide.
We devised an innovative engineering methodology to appraise the lateral loading capacity and racking resistance of the proposed aerated concrete panels using test data. With our specialised design approach and active involvement in multiple design team meetings, we helped to gain approval on the scheme with the National House Building Control Warranty Providers.
To further appease the Warranty Provider, we undertook numerous site visits to inspect the quality of construction, aid the teaching of site teams in the critical construction stages and undertake remedial detail assessment when necessary. Our involvement in this scheme, aided this new innovative construction approach to be implemented successfully across multiple sites over multiple Barratt regions.
We continually work with the Developer and specialist Contractor to utilise practical solutions to theorical or construction issues to make sure the innovative proposal became a reality. This new approach to traditional construction has helped to reduce construction time, increase the rate of building completion and reduce waste material on site by utilising a prefabricated material.
Beeston Business Park, Nottingham
We undertook the substructure and superstructure structural engineering designs for this 310 plot site for Barratt North Midlands.
The site was historically used for light industrial works, so we were involved early in the project to discuss and review appropriate foundation solutions due to site conditions, site constraints and proposed earthworks.
The site was in close proximity to the River Severn Trent and existing terrace properties, therefore we had to consider the implications of shallow ground water and the disturbance to neighbouring residents to the foundation proposal.
We undertook conditional structural surveys of neighbouring properties prior to construction and were involved in meetings on and off site to make sure the foundation proposal was suitable.
We successfully undertook all the reinforced strip foundation designs and detailing to suit the Client’s deadlines to allow for vibratory ground improvement to be viable.
Where issues with ground conditions arose, due to shallow ground water, we reacted quickly to make sure construction could progress with site visits, trial pitting and remedial structural design where necessary.
Our ability to react to our Client’s needs, achieve tight deadlines and consistently explain design implications to construction changes we have been able to form a trustworthy working relationship and continued to work with this Barratt region regularly.
Transformation
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Testimonials
Exceptional service! Ecotech Engineers consistently provide top-tier structural engineering and foundation design solutions. Their professionalism, attention to detail, and outstanding communication always ensures a flawless project. Highly recommended.
The guys at Ecotech always deliver quality, well presented information in the right time frame and Laura is great at providing friendly advice when needed. Highly recommended!
Ecotech Engineers have provided us with a first class service. Their structural expertise play a pivotal part in our design development and are our number one structural consultancy
Persimmon Homes East Midlands have worked with Ecotech for over 2 years, regularly making use of their structural engineering expertise to help us deliver residential developments of varying sizes. During that time we’ve established a strong partnership and collaborative working relationship Laura and the Ecotech team such that I would happily recommend the engineering services that they offer. Ecotech support us throughout the development of sites, from early stage pre-purchase reviews, investigations and assessments through to delivering detailed foundation and superstructure designs for a wide variety of sites. That full spectrum of work along with wider engineering support as required is always of high quality and clearly comes from professional engineers who have weighty expertise, understand the ‘bigger picture’.
We have used Ecotech Engineers on a wide range of work and they have provided thorough and detailed designs ranging from land appraisals to detailed design on many of our schemes. Ecotech are very helpful, knowledgeable and are always able to deliver the designs on time.
Testimonials
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