Structural Engineers near you

Call an engineer whenever a change affects what holds the house up, or when something suggests the structure is moving. The answer is often a fairly simple beam, post or reinforcement, but it has to be calculated for your house, not guessed.

A home inspector flags symptoms, such as a crack, a deflecting beam or an out-of-level floor, and recommends further evaluation. A foundation contractor repairs cracks and waterproofs walls, and some offer assessments tied to their own solutions. A structural engineer, independent of the repair, diagnoses the cause and designs a fix any qualified contractor can price. For crack injection, waterproofing and repair methods, see the foundation repair and foundation crack pages; for movement, bowing walls or underpinning, bring the engineer in first.

A structural engagement answers a specific question: can this wall come out, why is this floor sagging, is this crack a concern, can this roof carry panels. The narrower and clearer the question, the more useful the answer.

In Ontario, the Professional Engineers Act requires every licence holder to have a seal issued by PEO, and sealing a drawing indicates it is final for its intended purpose and was prepared by, or under the supervision of, a licensed engineer who takes responsibility for it. In Quebec, the OIQ explains that engineers must authenticate the engineering documents they prepare or supervise, and that only preliminary documents, such as those issued for comment, are exempt. A good residential drawing is specific enough that the contractor has nothing left to guess.

Structural work almost always needs a building permit, and the engineer's drawings are usually the heart of the application.

Engineering is regulated province by province. Engineers Canada explains that titles such as Professional Engineer or P.Eng., or any title including the word engineer, can only be used by people who are licensed, and that you must be licensed by the regulator of the province or territory where the title is used. There are 12 provincial and territorial regulators, including Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) and, in Quebec, the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ).

Both publish directories. PEO's lets you search licence holders and firms holding a certificate of authorization, and the OIQ's lets anyone look up an engineer on its roll and check their status. A licence covers the profession as a whole, so also ask whether the engineer regularly handles residential structural work.