Hiring your own engineer before foundation repair

What an engineer assesses

A licensed Texas professional engineer can analyze a foundation problem and design an engineered repair. The state engineering board says an expert opinion on the cause or a recommended repair is engineering work. Texas law has conditional exemptions for private-dwelling repair and plans, so a PE is not required for every repair. A home inspector licensed by the Texas Real Estate Commission must report on how a foundation is performing, but is not required to find the cause or recommend a fix.

That matters because cracks and sticking doors can come from causes other than foundation movement, and all foundations move a little, even good ones. Texas has no state foundation repair contractor license. A PE license gives you a state roster and professional rules for the engineering work.

Who the engineer works for

Board rules require a Texas engineer to act as a faithful agent for the client, the party that hired them. An engineer must disclose a potential conflict of interest in writing, and may not take pay from more than one party for the same project. The Texas foundation guidelines call avoiding conflicts of interest essential to a credible evaluation.

The Texas rules we reviewed do not say the homeowner must hire the engineer directly. An engineer you hire answers to you. Ask any engineer who hired them, who pays them, and whether they have any tie to the company that will do the work.

How to check an engineer

• The license. Search the engineer's name or license number on the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors PE roster. It shows license status and expiry. A license expired for two years or more drops off the roster, so a missing name is not proof either way.
• The firm. An engineering firm must be registered with the board. On the firm roster, only Active means the registration is current.
• The seal. A sealed plan or report shows the engineer's name and license number. A seal means the named engineer did or directly supervised the work and takes responsibility for it. It does not prove a site visit: the board has disciplined an engineer who sealed letters about piers an employee inspected.
• The record. The board publishes disciplinary actions, except informal reprimands. To ask whether complaints were ever filed, contact the board.
• Insurance. Texas does not require engineers or engineering firms to carry liability insurance. Ask.

What to keep after the repair

• The engineer's report and repair plan.
• The post-repair elevation survey. The guidelines say the engineer or a representative should measure again after the repair and give you a copy.
• The engineer's letter of substantial completion, if you hired the engineer to write one. It is an opinion that the work generally follows the plan, not a guarantee.
• The permit and its final inspection. In Austin, copies of a closed permit's documents come through a public records request.
• Plumbing test results, and the warranty with its transfer terms. Transfer rules vary by company: some require notice within 30 days of a sale, a notarized form or a fee.

These papers answer the questions a buyer will ask when you sell. The Texas seller's disclosure form asks about previous structural repairs and about repairs made without required permits.

What an independent evaluation costs, and what Austin repairs cost, is on our Austin foundation repair cost page.