Integrity Structural Engineering

"Christina P. was removing a load bearing wall in a townhouse. Her contractor was going to install a certain size beam to replace the wall. They wanted me to say that the beam was the correct size and then they were going to install the beam. I told them that they would need plans and calculations signed and sealed by a registered professional engineer and they needed to submit those documents to Anne Arundel County for a building permit. I was not rude. I was just telling her the truth. Concerning wrecking her job, she is a real estate agent and the time it would take to get the building permit probably impacted the anticipated time of sale of the townhouse which caused problems for her."

"The issue was a sagging roof. While standing on a ladder, I looked into the attic using my spotlight. What I saw, and I have seen this before, is a poorly constructed roof truss system. It was poorly constructed because the rafters( the members that come together to form the peak of the roof )were in two pieces held together by undersized metal gusset plates. The rafters should be in one piece. By constructing them in two pieces a major failure point is introduced where the two members are joined together by the gusset plate. Additionally, I could see that the gusset plates were undersized and had moved downward as evidenced by the vertical scratch marks on the rafters. I told the client that it would be unwise for me to go into the attic because the bottom chords( the horizontal members under the insulation) were probably also in two pieces held together by undersized gusset plates and to walk on them would probably cause me to fall through into the room below. The client was upset because I told him that the trusses were inferior( for the reasons stated above), similar to what the home inspector told him. (but probably not in such detail).As for the text messages that he sent me, I did not receive them. I believe that he did send them but they did not get to me. I can see why he would be annoyed if I ignored his texts, but I could not respond to texts that I did not receive. I always respond to client texts, emails, phone calls etc.some of which come many months after my inspection. My responses are always without charge because they are covered by my original fee."