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 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.

Excellent personal service at a great price…read more I appreciated dealing with a responsive individual rather than a large impersonal design firm. Highly recommended.

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!

Zhang Architects Inc has collaborated with Austin and his team at Upright Engineering on several…read moreprojects throughout the San Francisco Bay Area where Zhang Architects provided architectural design services. Their team consistently delivers high-quality civil and structural engineering services with strong attention to detail, professionalism, and responsibility. They are responsive, easy to work with, and maintain reasonable turnaround times throughout the project process. We appreciate the collaborative working relationship and look forward to continuing to work with Upright Engineering on future projects.

We had great experiences working with Upright Engineering for our house addition project in SF…read moreBernal Heights. Our project located on steep slope and the structural design and cals requirements are extremely strict from DBI SF, we even went through the SAC meeting! Because Austin and his team have extensive knowledge to compliant with SF DBI's codes and requirements, we did go back and forth too many times for revision of the design or plan. the city was pretty happy with their works. Upright Engineers worked on our foundation, stairs and structural documents. Amber is very responsive throughout our permit application process, whenever there were new comments or changes from the city requirement, she responded right away and contacted the right person in the team for the request. we highly recommend Upright Engineering! Thanks

Peiman and Laleh have been a phenomenal help. They are patient, kind, knowledgeable, and willing to…read morego the extra mile, when extra questions or issues arose with our contractor. We wouldn't be more thrilled to recommend them. Peiman's team's professionalism and skill make them a rare find for home remodeling projects in the Bay Area.

I contacted more than 20 structural engineers in attempting to even get someone to take my call,…read morelet alone to make my choice of whom to work with for seismic calculations for my home remodel project. Mr. Peiman Ghaffari of S&P Structural Engineers clearly stood out above the rest. He was the fastest to respond; the best communicator -- patient, clear, and easy to work with; and was the one who completed my project with integrity, high technical competency, and professionalism, exactly on time. I have to say I count myself fortunate for finding and choosing Mr. Ghaffari / S&P for my work and I would hope to hire him again if ever a new need arises.

Tl;dr: an inspection was performed but I was left unimpressed with the level of service and…read moreprofessionalism exhibited after our inspection with Bay Area Structural. In October, we suffered flooding in our subarea when a drain blocked behind the home and water came in under the back wall. We scrambled to schedule an inspection with a structural engineer, and Bay Area Structural was one of the recommendations that we reached out to. We paid $650 for an inspection (paid by check at the inspection itself), and managed to schedule it a couple of weeks out. David came over, gave us a print out on drainage, and walked around our property taking notes. He asked for a copy of our foundation blueprints and mentioned that based on his observations the drain was sufficient and that not much needed to be done to for seismic retrofitting. He mentioned the construction of our deck wasn't as high quality as the rest of the building. I was expecting a written report that would cover all of these recommendations and would make recommendations for how to improve the deck. Fast forward about 3 weeks, and amidst the chaos of a last minute overseas trip after my grandmother passed away, I realised we had yet to receive the report. I emailed David and and he followed up promptly - stating that the report had been sent weeks ago and attaching a PDF of the scanned report and answering some questions I had. Unfortunately both the report and his answers weren't particularly helpful when it came to allaying our concerns - instead repeating basic facts about what had happened, and describing some very general advice about keeping drains cleared - followed by a page of disclaimers. I followed up with foundation plans David had requested much later - it took a while to get them from the seller and to scan the large format documents. When I didn't get a response after a week, I called and left a voicemail (having failed to ever speak to a human when calling). David followed up with a cryptic response via email - which I responded to - and then didn't hear back again for another week until escalating to our realtor who helped put us in touch. Finally, I managed to speak to David on the phone and clear things up. Overall, Bay Area Structural seems competent but their inability to follow up with us and actually deliver on what they had originally promised took a substantial amount of effort. I'm guessing this is a symptom of being very busy - emails to the address on their website bounce with "OVER QUOTA". Whilst I'm thankful that David was able to come out and address our concerns, I'd hesitate to recommend this service to others in a similar situation.

David and his team are extremely knowledgeable and thorough. They inspected our home with care and…read morenoticed a small area that our seismic retrofit company had missed. They helped us with new drainage and went above and beyond to ensure our home is well-supported and our family is safe.

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.

Working with Kais at Oaktown Engineers was hands-down one of the best decisions we made during our…read morehome-buying journey. He is super sharp, unbelievably knowledgeable, and incredibly thorough. He took his time walking us through everything--we never felt rushed for a single second! On top of his expertise, Kais is genuinely kind and a pleasure to work with. His insights gave us total peace of mind to make our offer. We feel really fortunate to have found him.

I contacted Oaktown Engineers to inspect the foundation of my small North Oakland home. Kais met…read moreme on time (actually, he was early!) and was very efficient and professional during his assessment and very patient with all my questions. I was prepared for the worst (foundation replacement), but he explained why this wasn't the case and went over what really did need to be done -- not nearly what I'd feared. The followup written inspection report was a 5-star job and exceeded my expectations. Everything we discussed was clearly itemized, problems extensively documented and described (with pictures), and repairs clearly detailed for followup and remediation. I'm extremely happy with Kais and Oaktown Engineers!