ATA Engineering

I was referred to ATA by our general contractor to help prepare structural engineering plans for a home remodel. Ali and his staff were professional, responsive, competent and reasonable. A pleasure to work with. They prepared both architectural and structural plans that expedited permit approvals with the city. Ali followed up with an on-​site reinspection following demolition /​discovery and was accommodating with both required and requested changes. We were delighted with the revised plans which were made available promptly. I will gladly work with ATA again on future projects.

Overall we had a very positive experience with Ali. At the beginning we had a lot of problems with our remodel and at first were concerned that ATA was part of the issue. We ultimately learned that the real problem was our totally incompetent General Contractor (Jared’s Custom Homes) as soon as we fired him and hired a new contractor all was good and ATA was especially helpful during the transition. I took one star off only because in retrospect we learned that everyone on our project saw and knew how bad Jared was and we wish the people that we hired had let us know. Overall, we see that Ali protected us as best he could under the circumstances and we are using him again.

Ali at ATA really came through for my family at the last minute during a home renovation that involved removing a load bearing wall separating the kitchen and living room. Ali was fast, thorough, and reasonably priced. The documents where will produce and I fully expect them to get through inspection without any problems. I will update my review afterwards.

Ali has been great. I say this because he has had to deal with the switching of general contractors midway through the engineering of my project. Let me add, it was not an easy transition. He has also had to manage communicating with multiple key players, since my home is part prefab/​part site built. I have appreciated Ali’s no nonsense and direct style. Not only is he efficient, articulate, but he is creative with his work. Because of his creativity, he has already saved me money with how my foundation will be built. My new general contractor was really impressed with him as well. If I were ever to take on building a home again, he would be the first person I would go to for advice before starting my project. I wish I had encountered Ali and his team before I began this project. He is a very skilled engineer – I have been thoroughly impressed. I will update my review when my project is complete. Thank you, Ali!

This is probably only the 3^rd Unilocal review I’ve written in my 7 years as a Unilocal member mainly because I only do it when I’m particularly moved (extremely positively or extremely negatively) by a business. ATA Engineering gets the highest review possible. I had a remodel project in San Francisco go horribly wrong and my original engineer suddenly become non-​responsive when the contractor had significant issues with the original plan. A general contractor friend of mine recommended Ali (He said of the 5 engineers he works with (on multimillion dollar homes), Ali is the best).
Ali stepped right in and came up with multiple very sound solutions and got my project back on track. He is an excellent engineer and worked at an unbelievable pace. He understood from the beginning the urgency in my project (newborn on the way!). In fact, he was actually quite ill and had gone to the hospital earlier in the day for a high fever, but drove up to my place in SF and did a sight visit. After his recommendations were implemented, he came back up and inspected everything thoroughly. He is extremely responsive by both phone and email. Many engineers will use generic drawings without paying much attention to your particular project (as my original engineer did). Ali actually comes up with cost-​effective engineering based on your specific plan. This may not sound significant but it can save a lot of money and time.
For the quality of work you get from Ali and his crew, he is a steal. My biggest regret is that I didn’t know about Ali earlier – it would have saved me a lot of headache and money. No doubt, I will use him again for any future project.

I am a General Contractor who has worked in the trades for 18 years. I have dealt with 9 different structural engineering firms throughout my career; some great and some not so great. I have built two projects with ATA Engineering and am in the process of starting a third. I appreciate ATA’s rapid response to me needs and their ability to save me thousands when the crews make a mistake.
A lot of factors go in to engineering a structure including Soil Engineering and the California earthquake codes. While I feel these other entities play a huge role in the overengineering of a structure, ATA has always found the most cost effective approach to keep everyone happy. 7 of my other structural engineers are truly guilty of overengineering the structures to save their own skin, ATA is not.
I appreciate the pricing that I receive from ATA to engineer my projects. They are fair with their pricing and if anything they are under priced. It is not uncommon for them to make changes to the plans due to architect/​client revisions and not charge for them. My other 8 engineering firms charge by the minute for anything that changes, even to talk on the phone.
Give ATA Engineering a shot at your project, you will not be dissapointed unless you expect someone to work for free.

We have used ATA three times now. Once to engineer two different possible versions of an addition to our home in San Carlos that we got approved by the City of San Carlos last year (both the one story version and the two story version) and again this year to engineer a remodel to our new house in San Carlos. I read the other review by *Hugh* and I feel like ATA got a bad rap. (I don’t know about his particular experience, but I have found that it is a time consuming process to deal with the city of San Carlos building and planning departments and that is where the hang up is in the process. They have minimal office hours and are behind closed doors. The inspectors aren’t bad, they just have to sign off on what the city is requiring which can seem like overkill). ATA worked with us to make many revisions and even wrote a letter to the city to support our permit application. He went above and beyond the norm and did so at a reasonable cost. Any frustration we might have with the process of remodeling or adding on in San Carlos lays firmly at the city’s doorstep, not the engineer’s. I imagine that we’ll move or remodel again in the future and I would not hesitate to use ATA again.

I would steer clear. While we made it through San Carlos permitting, it was not an easy process. The plans were over engineered in many areas which ended up costing us thousands (i.e. the inspector asked us if were building a 3 story house, based on the foundations and structure called for, while we were only doing a one story remodel). He was also very hard to reach and not super responsive dispite how much we were paying him (not cheap, so I thought that I would get better service).
If all you are looking for is to pass the permitting process, then he could do that, but it will cost you in more ways that just his bill.