Structural engineering, land surveying and geotechnical work all require their own state-licensed professionals — we're not licensed in any of the three. What we do is coordinate them: find the right specialist for your project, get their work talking to your drawings, and manage the back-and-forth so you're not the one chasing three different consultants for updates.
Most residential and small commercial projects don't need a structural engineer, a land surveyor, and a geotechnical engineer at all. But when a project does trip one of those requirements — a retaining wall over a certain height, a second-story addition, a lot with unclear boundary lines, or a hillside site with questionable soil — the property owner is usually the one left to find a qualified consultant, explain the project from scratch, and then make sure that consultant's report actually lines up with the architectural drawings. That coordination gap is where projects lose weeks: a structural engineer designs a footing that doesn't match the foundation plan, or a soils report comes back after the drawings are already at plan check.
We sit in the middle of that process. We scope which specialist(s) your project actually needs during the initial site visit, bring in licensed professionals we've worked with before, and keep their calculations, reports and stamped drawings coordinated with the architectural set as it develops — rather than treating the structural, survey and geotechnical pieces as separate submittals that happen to share an address. The engineering, surveying and geotechnical analysis itself is always performed and stamped by the independently licensed professional responsible for it; our role is managing the process so it moves as one project instead of three disconnected ones.
For retaining walls over the height threshold, second-story additions, large commercial spans or anything else that needs stamped structural calculations, we bring in a licensed structural engineer and coordinate their calcs and details against our drawings — the same tie-in work described on our structural + Title 24 page. The engineer performs and stamps the structural design; we make sure it matches what's actually drawn.
Boundary surveys, topographic surveys, lot line verification, elevation certificates and construction staking all require a licensed land surveyor. We coordinate the surveyor's fieldwork and the resulting survey against the site plan — see our site plans & property surveys page for how that feeds into the drawing set. We don't perform the survey ourselves; we make sure it gets done by someone licensed to do it, and that it matches what we draft.
Soil reports, foundation recommendations, compaction and percolation testing, and slope stability analysis are geotechnical (soils) engineering work, requiring a separate license from structural engineering. For hillside lots, expansive soils, or any jurisdiction that flags your parcel for a soils report, we bring in a licensed geotechnical engineer and route their foundation recommendations back into the architectural and structural drawings.
At the site visit, we flag which parts of your project actually require a licensed structural engineer, land surveyor or geotechnical engineer — not every project needs all three, and some need none.
We connect you with licensed professionals we've coordinated with before, sized to your project's scope — a small retaining wall doesn't need the same structural engineer as a commercial addition.
Stamped structural calcs, survey documents and soils reports get checked against our architectural drawings as they come in, so foundation sizes, boundary lines and elevations agree across every sheet.
The complete package goes to plan check together, and if a reviewer has a question for a specific specialist, we route it and keep the project moving instead of leaving you to relay messages.
No. Structural engineering, land surveying and geotechnical engineering each require a separate state professional license, and we don't hold any of the three. We're a drafting and design business. When your project needs one of those disciplines, we coordinate with an independently licensed professional who performs and stamps that work — we don't perform it ourselves, and we're upfront about that distinction with every client.
Either can work, and we'll talk through which makes sense for your project. Most clients prefer to let us coordinate the whole team, since we already know which specialists handle which project sizes and can keep their deliverables lined up with the drawings as the project moves. If you already have a structural engineer, surveyor or geotechnical engineer you want to use, we're glad to coordinate with them directly instead.
It depends on the lot and the scope — a flat interior lot with clear, recorded boundary lines and stable soil may not need either, while a hillside property, a lot with unclear lines, or a project involving retaining walls or new foundation work often does. Some jurisdictions also require a survey or soils report as a standard submittal item regardless of site conditions. We check your specific property and jurisdiction against these triggers at the site visit rather than assuming either way, so you're not paying for a report you don't need.
Residential or commercial, drafting or Title 24 — send a few details and we'll follow up with next steps and a free quote.
(408) 676-8747
Sunny Drafting & Design