We get asked a lot what an actual residential structural engineering project looks like, end to end. So here's a redacted walk-through of a typical job — names and address removed, but the engineering is real. This one was a kitchen- opens-to-living-room remodel in a 1970s Layton rambler, the most common project we handle.
The intake
Email Tuesday morning: "We're remodeling our kitchen and want to take out the wall between the kitchen and living room. The contractor said we need an engineer letter. Can you help?"
Three photos attached: one of the wall from the kitchen side, one of the wall from the living room side, and one looking up at the ceiling. From the photos we could tell:
- The wall was about 12 feet long
- There was no obvious header above an existing opening (no opening yet)
- The ceiling joists ran perpendicular to the wall (visible in the basement photo they sent later) — meaning it was load-bearing
- The house was a single-story rambler — one floor of load above
We replied within an hour with a fixed fee of $550 and a five-business-day turnaround, contingent on a site visit because we wanted to look at how the wall was framed and confirm a bearing strategy.
The site visit
Wednesday afternoon, 30 minutes on site. We confirmed:
- The wall was 2x4 framed at 16" o.c.
- It carried roof and ceiling load (no floor above)
- The basement directly below had a steel beam running parallel to the wall — meaning the load currently came down through the wall and onto the slab, not down to a basement column. This affected the new bearing strategy.
- There were existing closets at each end of the wall, which gave us natural locations for the new bearing posts
The design
Loads:
- Tributary roof load: 12 ft span × ~20 psf snow + 10 psf dead = 360 plf
- Tributary ceiling load: ~10 psf = 120 plf
- Total load on the new beam: roughly 480 plf over a 12 ft clear span
We designed a 1.75x11.875 LVL beam (a single-ply LVL, installed flush in the ceiling). The bearing posts at each end were 3-stud built-up posts down to existing top plates, which we confirmed bore on doubled-up plates over the basement beam below — clean load path all the way to the ground.
The letter included: a sketch of the wall layout with the new beam location, the LVL specification, the bearing post details, the connection notes (top of beam to the existing rafters via Simpson hangers, beam ends to posts via standard hangers), and a note about temporary shoring during the cut.
The deliverable
Stamped PDF in the homeowner's inbox Friday afternoon. Total time from initial email to stamped letter: three business days. The contractor took the letter to Layton building services on Monday and the permit was approved that afternoon.
The total cost picture for the homeowner
- Engineering letter: $550
- Permit fee: ~$120
- Beam material: ~$280
- Contractor labor for the beam install: about $1,800
- Drywall and finish work: separate
For under $3,000 total, the homeowner got the open-concept kitchen they wanted, with a properly designed beam that's not going to cause problems in 20 years. The engineering was roughly 18% of the total cost — and the cost of not getting it would have been far higher.
What we'd do for you
If you're contemplating something like this, the process is the same. Send photos and a description, get a fixed fee, get the letter, build the work. See our load- bearing wall removal post for the broader explainer, or our Layton page for more on what we do in Layton.