Eli from ESG Design has been exceptionally helpful. My retaining wall project sits in a critical area in Medina, and I had zero experience with this type of work, which dragged out the permit process. Eli not only led the design, but also guided me throughout the process with the kind of advice you'd expect from a friend. He's resourceful, knowledgeable, and consistently responsive. I wouldn't have been able to move this project forward without him. Truly appreciate his support. read more

Eli is a godsend! I stumbled across Eli's business while desperately trying to help my mother rebuild her home after a total fire loss. I was nearly ready to give up when I found him. After our initial consultation, I knew he was the right man for the job. He became our PM, engineer, architect, permit expert, et al. He had a monumental task before him; including sorting out all the environmental issues, correcting/recreating work done by other contractors, finding solutions for issues neither of us had previously dealt with, etc. He saved us so much time/money. We now have an approved King County permit in hand and ready to build! This is entirely due to Eli's creativity, expertise and skill. We wholeheartedly recommend ESG Design. Eli, thank you! read more

Eli made our design and permitting process and breeze. He's quick to respond and very knowledgeable. He even went to bat for us when the County required additional submittals he didn't feel were necessary for our project. Highly recommend Eli to anyone needing an engineer and help with permit submittals. read more

I had two simple questions about my (new to me) home: 1. What walls were load bearing 2. For a particular area I knew was likely load bearing, what were the main, high level options for dealing with the load if I took the wall down Since I had a full set of digital copies of the original plans, they were reviewed promptly and I now have a good understanding of how to move forward. read more

We hired Eli from ESG for a variety of large projects at my house in 2019. Since then, we've worked with him on many projects. He's been fantastic on all fronts. He first came to our house and took note of what needed to be done, giving us a very fair quote. We went ahead with him and have been very happy. He's meticulous, which is exactly what we want when making structural changes. Plus, he's a great communicator. Our project just started and after demo we found a couple of shear walls. I contacted him and after looking at our situation he tried to help us as soon as he could. Whenever I send him an email, he responds within an hour or less. He's very flexible as well. I would highly recommend Eli and his team! read more

I had the worst experience in my life with ESG design. We hired them by recommendation from our GC for a residential remodel. He promised multiple times to review existing plans and provide a design and blew past the deadline and ghosted us for months. He was always paid on time when the invoice arrived and really had no excuse. We should have started over with someone else, but the cost to re-review the existing plans with a different engineer was prohibitive. He eventually fessed up and took responsibility and offered us a "discount". We finally got through it, but I'm just appalled by the experience with him. If we cross paths in the real estate development industry (small world), I will definitely make sure he's not hired. read more

We are doing a DIY basement remodel, and Eli helped us get the structural plans drawn up and sent to the city. He and his team was great! Super responsive and helped us all through the permitting and build process. read more

We hired Eli for our basement remodel. We wanted to add a bathroom and 2 bedrooms as well as sliding doors to the patio. Eli has been great to work with, super fast to respond via emails even at odd hours and last minute questions, he's amazing. We submitted his structural plans to the City of Bellevue and we were instantly approved! read more

We hired Eli from ESG for a variety of large projects at my house. He's been extremely fantastic on all fronts. He first came home and took note of what needed to be done and turned around with a very fair quote. We went ahead with him and have been very happy. He's meticulous which is exactly what we want when making structural changes. Plus, he's super prompt with communication. Whenever I send him an email, he's responds very clearly, at times with pictures, within just a couple of hours. He's very flexible as well - I had him jump on a conference call with my multi slide door vendor when we needed to sort some details out. Overall, I would highly recommend Eli and team! read more

Eli has always get back to me on time and have a very clear initial design for my DADU project. We are still working on the final design but I have been very pleased working with Eli! read more

We just moved to the Seattle area and are remodeling our new house. We wanted to remove some walls to open up our kitchen. I know quite a bit about construction, but whenever it comes to removing walls, and possibly bringing down the roof with it... I always call the pros. In this case, that was ESG. Eli arrived early and was very professional. He took photos and measurements, and did some exploration in the attic. He was able to quickly tell me that the walls were not load bearing, and therefore could be removed easily. ESG then provided me with a letter to include with my building permits, to show the city his findings if any questions were to arise during construction. Almost every engineering firm I approached, gave me a runaround or told me that they could maybe squeeze me into their schedule in a month or two. It was painfully obvious that the didn't want to deal with my "small" project. Eli and ESG were wonderfully responsive and came to my house within a week. Give him a call... read more

We hired Eli for structural engineering and Energy Code updates. He was efficient, clear in all communications and got the work done within a reasonable time. Highly recommend! read more

Eli is incredibly quick to respond to questions about his design, even many months after he completed his work for me. We're currently expanding my husband's home office into an adjoining storage room by removing a wall and installing a window in the basement of a 3 story house. Obviously we're very concerned about the potential to damage our home by removing a wall in our basement. We hired Eli to review our home's blueprints and design a plan to safely remove the wall and install the window. 6 months later I've finally got a contractor to execute Eli's plan, and as our contractor is doing the work he's had a few questions. He wanted to install a bigger window than the design called for, and when he opened up the wall he was concerned that it might be load bearing after all. I emailed Eli and he got back to me immediately to approve the window change. He then reviewed the blueprints and sent me an updated plan that confirm the wall was not load bearing. The next day my contractor wasn't certain if he had bought the right anchor to reinforce the portion of sheer wall that's going to remain after the demo, and he also wanted to install a 4x6 post in a slightly different spot than Eli's plan called for. I sent an email about the anchor and got a response from Eli while I was typing a second email about the post. My contractor is amazed at how responsive and helpful Eli has been compared to other engineers that he has dealt with. Eli's quick responses have allowed my contractor to keep working without delays, which is especially nice since my husband's home office is completely torn up right now. I was also easily able to use Eli's plans to pull a permit myself from the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspection office. My contractor would have charged me a thousand dollars to pull the permit (on top of the cost of the permit itself), so using Eli's plan saved me a bunch of money. Up next we're planning to build a 300 sq. ft. 3rd story deck using a plan that Eli designed. I'm glad to know that he'll be available should any issues arise during that long, expensive process. I'm also going to be hiring Eli again to design a retaining wall with drainage for my backyard. read more

*If you've read any of my other reviews you know the story: old house meets new home owners and not so huge budget.* We have a basement where we wanted to do some serious remodeling. We poured over contractors and talked to many of them and the conclusion was the same: the contractor goes to an architect, the architect goes to a structural engineer, and eventually the contractor does work. So we figured we should take matters into our own hands and actually talk to the structural engineer first to determine what are the safe things to do. Eli came highly recommended (from a yelp-competing website) and I am happy to say all those reviews were right. He's prompt, very patient in explaining the science behind things and got us started on the right foot. Eli also gave us recommendations of contractors and told us outright which proposals we had received before were likely hacks given the "shortcuts" they were doing at the structural level. To give a bit more context structural work means anything where the foundation of a house may get affected (think crawl space removal). We still haven't finalized the basement project but I am absolutely sure we'll want to work with Eli to do so. read more

I highly recommend ESG Design. I spent 7 weeks looking fora structural engineer who would take on a small project for me. Most never called back. The ones that did, dropped off after a few emails. But ESG was different from the beginning. He answered my request within hours, gave a very reasonable price, set a timeline, checked in when he neared the timeline to tell me the status and got the project done very, very quickly. He's easy to work with and did more than I expected. read more

Just purchased a 1908 house. Eli quickly responded to our request for a site and structural evaluation to determine whether we could build up. Eli was professional, knowledgeable and straight-forward. I would definitely reach out to him again in the future. read more

In a remodel of our condo, the city needed a structural engineer's approval to ensure the walls being removed were not load bearing. I had Eli from ESG Design come out and draft up some documents that I could submit to the city for permits. In addition to that, he was also able to help with a solution for a improperly notched joist I discovered. Eli was very nice, professional, and communicative. read more

Eli and his team were professional and great to work with. Eli's assessment of my crawlspace was thorough and he provided me some excellent guidance on what I, as a homeowner doing my crawlspace project alone, can do verses what I cannot do, and he offered excellent engineering suggestions for what I *should* do. I'd gladly use his engineering skills again in the future! read more

Not only did they provide great plans that sailed through permitting, but he engineer slightly revised my design to be easier to implement and thus cheaper. Can't say enough great things about this company. If you need an engineer, you'd be silly not to use them! read more