Our Niche TRULOFT has the most experienced structural engineering process throughout the entire State of California. Converting high ceilings into new room additions is our expertise and it is clearly not a job for just any engineer with a license. In fact, in 2023 alone, our company saw far too many projects drawn by other engineering firms that in some cases tripled the actual cost of the project. The State of California already has the most strict building codes and seismic requirements for residential homes. Over engineering is so common and it really is just over protecting the liability of the engineer that is signing off. If they don't know how to retrofit the result is over engineering because they will resort to textbook training for new construction. In most cases over engineering just indicates that engineer has little or no experience retrofitting new structures into existing ones.
Most structural engineers are experienced in drawing new construction plans not retrofitting into an existing structure. Retro, meaning old, and fitting, which refers to connecting or fitting the new into the old.
Worse Case The worse case we saw recently was a home in San Diego county. The plans were about to be approved by the city of San Diego. They would surely pass because there is no law or code against over engineering. It was certainly done right, but so heavily over-engineered that we thought this was probably an intern that drew up the plans and had the boss sign it. No, this was the licensed engineer's work. The civil engineer had drawn the plans with dimensional lumber using 2 x 10s (first mistake for this home), posting down every 8 feet (unnecessary), had added 13 under-pinned reinforced pad footings on a continuous two story footing wall, and double shear wall all around. All of this for a footing to footing span of about 12 feet. Wow! This engineering was as if it were a brand new two story structure. My first question to the homeowner after seeing his structural plans was, "Is your house sitting directly over a known fault line?" The answer was "No".
Maybe you don't mind making your house extra safe. But the example above added about $60,000 of unnecessary work to the project. Unfortnately this is more common than we originally thought. As we grow we run into more and more homeowners with plans that reach half way to China and could hold a skyscraper on their property.
Structurally Motivated Expansion The more we see that lack of proper retrofitting the more we realize that our company needs to be everywhere. With TRULOFT we bring our perfected retrofitting process and hopefully save the homeowner before they get into these hyper-engineered situations. This is a big motivating factor for our growth around the entire state of California and even beyond state borders.