When you want to start by paraphrasing the Paw Patrol motto, “no job is too big, no project is too small” you can tell you’re in your Grandpa era.

Our office receives email requests for residential structural engineering services and often prefaced in the first sentence includes wording to this effect: “we saw your company on a web search, and we hope this project isn’t too small for you”. As with most things relating to social media, there can be a tendency to post the most striking or visually impactful photographs. This can include architecturally stunning homes and the more complex structural solutions that catch viewer’s attention. Most permits though are for minor upgrades or additions that significantly improve the function and performance of a home that reflects the changing needs of the homeowners. Photographs representing the vast majority of homeowners can often be overlooked.

I have always taken the position at Allester Engineering that no job is too small, or a homeowner’s needs more important than another. To every individual homeowner, their project is the most important project in the world, regardless of the size of the budget, the complexity, or scope of work. For most owners planning alterations or new construction, every dollar is significant. A project for a client with a limited budget is no less important to that homeowner or to Allester Engineering than those with unlimited budgets. The role of a structural engineering company should simply be to provide a service to our clients, full stop.

Residential wood framed alterations can include areas such as but not limited to:

• Altering a roof system to improve floor plan and bedroom volume; for example adding dormers, raising a ridge, kicking a simple gable roof line to one that includes shed dormers or dog-house dormers
• Removing walls in the kitchen and dining room areas to create a more open plan
• Changing the post and beam lines in the basement to improve floor plan layout, or flushing up interfering drop beams that improve head height in pass-through areas
• New decks, carports, or garages
• Constructing an addition to the home to increase square footage
• Constructing a laneway home, infill, or coach house

It is Allester Engineering’s mission to simply assist and provide the structural solutions to meet client’s needs, no matter the scope or scale of the project. So please don’t hesitate

to reach out to our office with any enquiries. Every project or request is treated with the same care and consideration.

Thanks for being here,

Jeff Allester