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| Structural Engineering SECB certified in the Practice of Structural Engineering, Texas Department of Insurance Wind Storm program engineer, member ASCE, SECB, USGBC, GHBA, and ASHRAE.  ECO's structural design servicesECO provides structural design for your new construction and renovation plans. We work with Architects, designers, remodelers, homeowners, solar providers, and engineers. ECO's experienced CAD staff will create new permit ready structural blue prints and construction documents. We work in both AutoCAD and in Autodesk REVIT (3D BIM) to create paper and electronic plans. All structural work include ECO's Texas P.E. seal and signature who is SECB certified in the practice of structural engineering  FOUNDATION DESIGN
Foundation design is challenging in local expansive soils. First the building site and architectural design is reviewed. Is it in a 100 Year Flood Plain? Will it be a slab-on-grade or a crawl space? Will it use post tensioning or rebar? What type of soil? Is it one, two, three or more stories? Is the floor plan a rectangle, L, or U shape? Will it use UFAD? Will it be wood or SIPs (structural insulated panel). Or will it be a masonry wall like AAC, ICF, or CMU? Will it have stucco, brick, or cement board lap siding?  STRUCTURAL FRAMING
Most of our residential projects are custom homes applying traditional wood frame design. Complex projects may include steel portal designs like this Lake Conroe project. Most of our projects apply 2x6 walls with 3" of foam or cellulose insulation with zero waste. ECO has also consulted for wood products organizations including the APA, Southern Pine, & Southern Forest organizations and are members of the Structural Insulated Panel Association (SIPA). Did you know that a 4" SIP wall is more energy efficient and stronger than a 2x6 wall? SIPs have less thermal bridging withbetter sealing.
We are also experienced with design of custom trusses and built up beam framing. These are often used in combination with alternate framing systems like Structural Insulated Panel construction (SIP). This truss framing was designed for the Seabrook Sailing Club designed using structural insulated panels for floor, walls, and roof. One of our other early SIP residential projects on Galveston went through Hurricane Ike wind and storm surge with no structural damage. This confirmed once again the high wind resistant capability that SIP constructyed structures have traditionally offered.
.jpg) COASTAL PROJECTS
We have designed many wind storm zone projects Many of these use driven piling foundations for coastal projects. ECO piling projects have been in Seabrook (these 2 photos), Galveston, and Bolivar. Our Galveston island SIP project went through Hurricane Ike's storm surge with no structural damage. We have also used permanent wood piling foundations in non coastal locations (Tomball). ECO has applied piling types including treated wood, fibergless, precast concrete, and site poured concrete.   BULKHEADS & PILINGS
We assist coastal projects with bulkhead structural design, inspection, and certification services. We worked with most common bulkhead systems (treated wood, concrete panel, vinyl sheet). This photo is of a vinyl sheet piling formed bulkhead that will protect a new coastal residence we also engineered. The house is designed using AAC (aerate concrete) wall lower storage level due to being located in a flood zone. This image is a rendering of a boat house we designed in 3D using Autodesk Revit Structure. The design process modeled the owner's boat size and flying bridge elevation. The boat hoist, mean sea level, predicted storm surge sea level were all incorporated. This allowed us to provide adequate framing clearance for the worst case storm surge into the design. .  Although the majority of our engineering is for dimensional 2x4 or 2x6 wood framed projects, if you contact us for discussion you will quickly learn that ECO has more in house experience with alternate residential building systems, than other local residential engineering firms, builders, or design architectural firms.
 Our project experience includes all of the alternate concrete building systems that are available. This includes AutoClaved Aerated Concrete block (AAC) construction, Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) systems, Structural Concrete Insulated Panels (SCIP) and advanced Concrete Masonry Systems (CMU). ECO's direct project application and installation experience gained from multiple projects with each of these systems can be invaluable your alternate concrete system project.  This experience allows ECO to explain or compare the 'real world' advantages and disadvantages of each system for different project types. We can explain structural performance, energy performance, material cost, labor cost, durability, supplier accessibility, and ease of use. We won this 'Best in Session' award for our presentation on this very subject to other Texas engineers in 2008.
Contact ECO (Houston) by Email: gbeck@eco-holdings.com) or Gmail: ecoegr@gmail.com or Phone: 713-377-4209
TexasEngineer.com is a registered name of Eco-Holdings LLC, a Texas registered engineering firm (F-7395 | |
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