We agreed on a price for a site visit of my building in Mercer county and given the general scope…read moreof the project, a price for the drawings. We met late afternoon with Mr Mason and my contractor and it went well, no surprises as my contractor already had a plan in mind and Mr. Mason, with a couple modifications, agreed upon the design. So i need to pay for the site visit and the drawings to get the work started. i received an invoice but the total cost for the project was $150 more than we talked about. I emailed them and the reply was the site visit went from $500 to $650. I was in a tight spot, i had to pay it to keep the project moving but I was totally unhappy with the price increase.

Last week my husband made an appointment for the engineer Mr. Bob Mason from Reliable Structural…read moreEngineers to inspect our house. According to the business's website, Mr. Mason holds a Bachelor of Architectural Engineering and Master of Architectural Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University (our alma mater, too!). We had purchased the house only a couple of months ago, and we had a regular house inspector do an inspection, but my husband wanted peace of mind about certain aspects of our house. A few days before the appointment, we had to reschedule because my husband's grandma passed away, and her funeral was during the appointment time. Mr. Mason rescheduled the appointment for a couple of days later. On the day of the appointment, Mr. Mason showed up a few minutes early. We had never before hired a structural engineer so felt a bit unsure of what questions to ask, but Mr. Mason answered all of our questions thoroughly. My husband probably asked the same question about the bouncy floors dozens of times, and Mr. Mason patiently answered the question each time. In about one hour, Mr. Mason inspected part of the exterior of our house, our basement, our two floors of living space, and our attic. Because of Mr. Mason's feedback, my husband and I learned a lot about the structure of our house and how to remodel it in the future. For example, we might add a trench drain between our driveway and garage, we know which load-bearing walls to leave alone when we remodel our kitchen and full bathrooms, we might add a roof vent and aluminum ladder in our attic, we will make sure that our front stoop has sufficient footing to add a portico, we might add sister joists to our floors to reduce bounciness, and we might add sister joints to our roof to support solar panels. In the future, we will use his recommendations to ensure that our contractors correctly perform their jobs. Because our house has no major issues, Mr. Mason gave us the option of purchasing a verbal report instead of a written report, which saved us a few hundred dollars.

Spoke with Tim Gerhart in January regarding a drawings of a deck. Agreed on price and time…read more Provided him with access and credit card details. Tim then vanished for about a month. I had to call him several times to remind that I'm waiting for the drawings which were already paid in full. Each time was promised to have them within a week. Finally, asked him for an invoice and got nothing in return.

Tim's a great guy! I…read moreasked Tim to come out to give me a consultation and overview of a structural project I'm undertaking at my house. I'm replacing the primary wooden beam and the perimeter load-bearing bandboards around the house. This is not a typical DIY type job, and I've never done any type of project like this before. So I called Tim to see if he could take a look at my house and go over, step-by-step, what needs to be done. He stayed for more than 2 hours and answered all of my questions, drew up some sketches, and worked with me to figure out a design, process, and all the materials that I'd need. His prices are reasonable (even a bit underpriced, I think). Tim is easy-going, thoughtful, and considerate. He even generously offered to source some wood right from his own farm for me. After we got through the technical aspects we chatted for a while about our experiences in construction and living on a farm. I love to work with someone who doesn't mind to take time and chat.