As the economy slowly groans out of its slump, a few condo owners finally feel secure enough to work on their homes. You may know, many condos have tiny kitchens, and are dark because of the walls around those. We at CSES Engineering perform quite a few designs to remove […] Read more »
Beam Far Too Small For The Load
This young man is quite proud of his house, which he purchased on a few months prior. You can see what he wanted repaired, and the sagging of the structural beam over the garage door is obvious. As it happens, the beam was far too small for the load it […] Read more »
CSES Engineering solved the problem by stiffening main structural members.
This is a really unusual project. For privacy, I have not shown the front of the house. It is a sorority house, and CSES Engineering was called to solve a problem. It seems that one of their rituals involves over 100 sorority sisters in one room, jumping up and down […] Read more »
Property In Danger Of Sliding Downhill?
There are those who can afford to live on the edge. In this case, the edge of a steep hillside, overlooking Puget Sound. Many of those also enjoy a large, flat lawn from which to enjoy the view. These two things are compatible, normally, only with some intensive engineering of […] Read more »
Easy Fix For Seattle Home
When one purchases a home, it generally appears to be perfect in most ways. Then the blinders are removed from one’s eyes, and flaws begin to become apparent. Or perhaps the house is actually what we imagined, and it is the flaws that are mirages. I think this North Seattle […] Read more »
Deck Dry Rot Deterioration
It’s nice to have a view. This fellow’s deck was beginning to deteriorate, with unprotected wood splitting and cracking, and in some places showing dry rot deterioration. The deck was built by a previous homeowner, and most like was done without a permit. It sits on sleepers laid directly on […] Read more »
Wood Foundation
A certain number of older homes in Seattle are constructed on top of wood foundations rather than concrete. Often this was done to save construction cost, and often the homes were built in what were, at the time, outlying areas – so that the buildings were intended for use as […] Read more »
Houseboats are restricted in size and must abide to a height limit.
Houseboat owners, generally speaking, are a non-traditional lot. Houseboats are greatly restricted in size, and must abide, for example, to an 18 foot height limit – this is pretty restrictive. This particular House Boat is one story, but I have designed 2-story versions, which often take some clever engineering to […] Read more »
Enclosing Home Carport
This young man had just bought his first house, and it was small. Well, we all have to start somewhere. He wanted to increase his living space inexpensively by enclosing an existing carport. You can see how crowded the home is, even with a relatively small quantity of possessions. We […] Read more »
Sloping Garage Foundation
Steeply sloping sites often are problematic, and many hillsides tend to migrate downward over time. This is frequently the result of gravity combined with rain, sometimes with a dash of bad planning thrown in. In this project, a contractor was hired to rebuild the foundation of a garage which had, […] Read more »