What does a site engineer do on a house construction site?

• Reads the drawings for the work planned that day
• Checks the materials on site — brand, grade and quantity — against the BOQ
• Confirms the labour and equipment needed are actually there

• Checks setting-out, levels and alignment against the drawings
• Inspects reinforcement, cover and shuttering before any concrete is placed
• Has concrete cubes cast at each pour for lab testing
• Flags anything that differs from the drawing — in writing, the same day

• Records work done, headcount and deliveries
• Updates progress against the milestone plan and flags any slippage
• Photographs the day's work, especially anything that will be covered next

This is the question that matters. A contractor's site engineer does all of the above for the contractor — whose interest is to finish fast and bill fully. An owner's engineer does the same checks for the owner, and adds the one job a contractor's engineer can't: re-measuring every bill before the owner pays it.

Rent an Engineer puts that second kind of engineer on your site. We hold no contract and buy no material, so we have nothing to gain from a bill going unchecked.