Residential Termite/Fire/Water Damage Repair

[jonev10]

I previously interned for a small structural engineering company that did some residential jobs for demolition and renovation/repair companies (think Servpro, Terminix, and other Termite repair/Flood/Fire damage businesses). Did projects that ranged from rotten roof sheathing to fire/termite damaged trusses to someone hitting their garage door frame with their car. Basically, we'd assess the damage, make a general layout showing where it is and add a detail or 2 for the replacement members.

What kind of experiences do you have with that kind of work? Just curious. I'm at a much bigger firm now and I don't get to do those anymore, but I want to start my own firm one day and do this kind of work again.

 

[phamENG]

It's out there. And lots of it, too. If you really enjoy it, do it well, and develop a good system, you can make decent money. The good system is key. When you compare the margins on this sort of work to larger design projects, it's hard to justify the opportunity costs if you do a thorough job. But as many of them are pretty 'standard' after a while, there are ways to do it profitably.

 

[jonev10]

Yes exactly. At the previous company I worked for it would take all of 3 hours between site visits and making the drawing. We'd get around 500-1000 (pre-covid inflation) each job. We'd done it so many times we just had a template and some details that we'd copy/paste (and adjust as needed).

 

[jayrod12]

We do so much insurance work in our office. We have 3 or 4 of the larger insurance companies that use no other firm but ours. Usually we make out pretty well on them. I would consider us a big firm, as far as structural goes. But I would say half the management hates the insurance work, because each one is a fee of $1,500-$2,000 on average. But when we do a hundred or more a year and make money on every one, I don't see the issue.

Compare that to the large fee projects that we often end up loosing money, or at best breaking even on our proposed fee structure, it makes sense to keep the work around.

And I'll admit, even though it's often work that has short timelines, I really do enjoy doing it. Especially in the summer when I can tag a few in a row out of town on the same day. Leave my house at 5am, be done for the day shortly after lunch. I usually end up stopping and playing a round of golf in the afternoon in whatever corner of the province I'm in at the time.