Our 100 year old house is about 1 mile from the Hayward fault. After 20 plus years of getting wild…read morebids for seismic upgrade work we went to KSF Structural and asked them to design us a new foundation. Kent was great to work with. He provided excellent drawings and a work package that resulted in almost no change orders. The bids were very tight for the work and the contractor's work crew did an excellent job. We are very happy with Kent's help on our project.

I did a whole house remodel down to the studs, that included a complete foundation replacement…read more After looking and interviewing a few structural engineers, I chose Kent, and am so happy I did. He was a pleasure to work with throughout the entire process (and trust me, it was a process lol). He provided plans and details that were easy to follow and build, was open to feedback, and provided clear communication of the tradeoffs involved. His rates are fair and work is quality. I would highly recommend Kent for your next project.

I reached out to Jim regarding a leak that was coming into the house at the lowest point of my…read morehome. I thought I would be in for a large cost to install a French drain system, but he was the first to say that we should look into seeing if we can solve this for $10. 1/ Adding some caulking to the side of the house, due to some cracking he saw in the exterior. 2/ adding to the downspout and adding a separate tube that can move the water to a different location. Super honest and thoughtful. In the future, if I need some investigation or work, Jim's my guy! Thanks for saving some money and being thoughtful.

Responsive, thorough and professional. No longer full service so Jim has structural engineers that…read morehe recommends and has with in the past.

Highly recommend for anyone looking to get work done under the EBB program! Oscar and Daniel came…read morein with a competitive bid and know the ins and outs of the program very well. Work was also completed on time and team left the place clean and tidy after.

Highly recommend for ESS (Earthquake Soft Story)! Altamira just finished an ESS seismic retrofit at…read moreour house in Oakland and my wife and I are very happy. Oscar was a great communicator and educator on the project and navigating the CEA ESS program related plans and permits, and ensured the project was competitively priced and well managed. Daniel and his crew performed the work, and were very professional, courteous, and tidy. They completed the work on time and within budget, and completed almost all of the CEA ESS application for us. A wonderful team and experience for us. Thank you, Altamira!

I contacted Joshua B. Kardon, PhD, SE, F.ASCE, on the advice of a friend who is an architect after…read morewe won the bidding war (for $869K) on a 1924 Craftsman home in San Leandro in 2019. It had several issues, especially a problematic (cracked) original foundation. When Joshua Kardon informed us that we might have to spend a considerable portion of the above purchase price to properly fix up the house, make it earthquake-safe, and bring it up to current codes, we decided to pass on this lovely house. (He told us that replacing the cracked original foundation and raising the basement ceiling from 75 inches height to 96 inches on the 1400-square-foot home - all by itself - might cost $200-$300,000 and take many months. The home had other issues, too.) We later purchased a smaller 1954 ranch-style home in almost-as-built condition and called Joshua Kardon again for a consultation about seismic strengthening. He designed the almost-finished project that spans the front of our home and protects it against earthquakes. Joshua Kardon selected a "SkinnyBrace" by Thor Matteson, SE, of Quake Bracing LLC as the most cost-effective way to anchor our garage and the front of the house using attic collectors and garage shear walls. Nieto Valle Construction of Hayward has executed his designs and will soon finish the garage drywall and attic insulation. Joshua B. Kardon, SE, has always insisted on designing and implementing the best possible seismic strengthening solution for us and his solution is now in place. His attention to detail and insistence on doing things "the right way" are highly reassuring and have produced great results. Josh is also very personable, patient in educating us as to why certain design strategies work better, and has a great sense of humor. I would recommend Joshua B. Kardon + Co., Structural Engineers, in a heartbeat to anyone considering seismic strengthening or any other projects requiring the services of an experienced, thorough, detail-oriented, and friendly structural engineer.

Josh was very kind and helpful in providing feedback on an early inquiry as to how I should…read moreapproach working with a structural engineer and contractor in an aspirational project I've started to think through. His calm, kind and approachable energy is exactly the kind of professionalism you want on your upcoming project.

I am a new owner of an apartment building in Oakland built in 1929. I've been working with Clausen…read moreEngineers now for several months to determine the best approach for the earthquake retrofitting. The building is complicated by angled walls. The engineers at Clausen have done a great job for me in every way. They have met me on the spot, interrupting their schedules, when I needed them. They have revised the plans when needed. They were careful to understand my expectations. I have worked some with other engineers on other buildings, and not been treated as well. While my experience (to be able to compare this company with others) isn't extensive, they were highly recommended by a man who has had much more contact with construction and rehab and engineering companies.

Hate to leave a negative review- but working with Clausen turned out to be our worst nightmare…read more Worked with Peter Clark to revamp our dock since Nov 2016 on paradise drive (Tiburon). After meeting with the county, we were informed that we needed a biologist report. Peter engaged Vollmar Natural Lands Consulting. They wrote up a detailed report with some heavy recommendations including us ordering an EFH (essential fish habitat) report. Also because there is a record of the red legged frog within 5 miles... that our construction crew needed to be educated by a biologist incase they ran into one (in the bay?). Clausen informed me that the report was standard -and sent to the county as is. Naturally the county came back and said we needed to order these additional reports that were suggested by the biologist. Guess how many times the lady at the county had ever ordered and EHF report... 0 - and didn't even know what it stood for but says her arms are tied and we have to go by the biologist's recommendations. So after a boat load of money for Clausen and 3rd party reports - we now need to order new 15k-20k reports in order to comply with the biologists recommendations. So we dropped the project... What is most painful about this experience is that Peter quit and moved to Dallas in September and didn't even tell us? Kers Clausen didn't even tell us- I had to hear this from the county in November when I finally called them! Kers not to mention continued to send us invoices and I finally had to terminate our agreement. His last "project update" said that he read the biologist report... in mid-November- when it was completed and submitted to the county in September- This is crazy. Need to recount- but I think I'm out of pocket for about 50k on this failed project.

Erik was very prompt and responsive. It was a pleasure to work with him and his office, I would use…read morethem again in an instant. He was very knowledgable and spent time explaining the process to me. I am very confident in his work.

Zack and Eric at WMstructural did a fantastic job on my structural plans & calculations for an…read moreaddition to my home in the Oakland Hills. My addition was a little more complicated than normal since I am on a downward sloping and the plans called for a glass floor veranda and with additional cantilevered decks. They methodically inspected the existing foundation/framing before starting their plans. Also, they addressed a number of architectural concerns with the design in easy to understand terms. Very knowledgeable, professional, responsive, and economical. I whole heartedly WMstructural.

We have been working on a 2nd floor addition to a 100 yr old house. As one can imagine, there are…read moremany significant structural issues that may arise unexpectedly when opening up walls and seeing how people build things 100 yrs ago. David and Ray have been incredible since the beginning of the process, helping us navigate through all the structural concerns and always trying to find a value engineering approach - whether it was optimizing depth of foundation work, or finding ways to reinforce old windows, coming up with ways to get headers into locations where there isn't the space, and/or proposing alternative shear wall options when there isn't room to fit things. Ray, our project engineer, has been the best communicating and responding to all our questions and worries. He carefully reviews the problem at hand that arise and often will provide 2 or 3 possible options that our builder can work on. With our current project, Ray is always super prompt to resolve any issues via call or email, or video conference and if necessary an onsite visit to inspect the construction phase. He was just crawling in our crawlspace the other day and notified our builder if some items that needed to be addressed to maintain a positive continuous connection from 2nd floor down to 1st floor and to crawlspace foundation. We are now adding the 2nd floor framing and almost done the most stressful part of the project. We have done 3 major remodels in the past with other firms where it was difficult to get in touch with anybody. With Ray and David at Simplengi Engineering, it has been a very refreshing experience to have experts that promptly responds to all our concerns. Value engineering, great timely communication, attention to detail, common sense, simple and smart engineering. We highly recommend Ray and David and Simplengi Engineering for any structural work. Simply great engineering. We don't plan to do another remodel for 100+ years but if we did, we would hire Simplengi 100% for sure.

​If you want the highest degree of professionalism​, the best customer service​, and an incredibly…read morewell trained and highly ethical engineer​, who is a supreme problem-solver and someone who actually responds to your questions, then you'll be 1000% satisfied with Dave Yadegar at Simplengi. ​D​ave is a superbly qualified engineer with a ​v​ast amount of varied professional experience​, and with his knowledge and skills​, ​h​e has saved us substantial amounts of time, money and perhaps most importantly - aggravation.​ ​I​nterestingly, I have met ​two other clients​ of Dave's, and they both shared the same opinion of​ his ability.​ ​D​ave will save you time, money, frustration, etc. New construction, remodels, expansion, - commercial and residential: he will simplify your life as ​he has done for me. He is absolutely the very best. PS- a shout-out goes to Antwon Trinh and Santosh Chitturi for helping round out the team!

I had an excellent experience working with Quakebusters. Jerome and Francisco came to give me an…read moreestimate and helped me navigate the EBB application. Once the work began, the entire crew was very careful, thorough, and communicative. Unlike other contractors, they made sure to clean up the spaces when they were done for the day and made it a positive experience.

My wife and I went through the pretty byzantine CA Earthhquake Brace and Bolt (EBB) grant process…read morein order to get our house more quake-resilient and get the Berkeley rebate and CA grant money. I had spoken to Jerome early in the process for an estimate, and he came prepared with all sorts of literature about what brace and bolt consists of, the soup-to-nuts process and general earthquake preparedness. We had to get multiple quotes, but other contractors were either dismissive or way more expensive. Once we decided on Quakebusters, Francisco was tremendously patient with us and guided us through the entire process and helped with advice about how to gather the information we needed. The crew took exactly as long as they anticipated, arranged their own porta-potty facilities, were punctual, arranged for the special and city inspections, worked with our schedule and cleaned our crawlspace nearly better than they found it! Quakebusters were also transparent that there were cheaper options than to go through the official EBB grant process, but we decided spending the extra money for peace of mind and to have permits was out best option. Thank you guys so much! Who you gonna call? Quakebusters!