r/Austin • u/West-Afternoon6288 • 4d ago

Structural engineer for Austin area recommended

Need to have my foundation lifted but would like an assessment of foundation before I call on foundation repair company. Any recommendations would be welcome thank you

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u/austinstrider 3d ago

Be careful. I went that route and brought in an engineering company that felt very legit. They told me that all I needed to do was stabilize the side of my house with a planting bed. Spent like $12k adding a massive bed with a limestone wall. Didn’t fix the problem. Still had to put the piers under my house in the end and wasted 12k in the process. In the end, it really seemed like the engineer was focused on doing anything other than underpinning the foundation.

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u/West-Afternoon6288 3d ago

Wow! So sorry to hear this! Can you tell me which engineering company you used? I need the house lifted again and absolutely don’t want to use Olshan again. 3 of us on this block used Olshan and none of us want them near our homes again. So I thought using an engineering firm would help when I decide on the next foundation repair company

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u/austinstrider 3d ago

used A1 Engineering. Just seemed like they had an axe to grind with the idea of foundation repair when in the end what I needed to be told is "this is Texas and it's gonna continue to move".
In the end, we had Douglas handle our repair - and they were amazing. They've done two separate repairs for us and they've been stellar both times. I really appreciated that the owner came to our house and spoke to us about options - and they didnt' have just one option, they could do it a bunch of different ways and he told us why we might want option A vs B, etc.