Clausen Engineers

Read a couple negative reviews here on Unilocal.Actually can’t speak regarding the company but I can speak specifically about one of the engineers that works there. James Vasquez is the man. I’m in the business I own a real estate company and also do some developing on the side. I work with a lot of engineers I find James to be very knowledgeable a non-​alarmist but also very thorough. In addition he has an excellent bedside manner and doesn’t talk down to me or my clients. I would highly recommend working with James Vasquez. Anyway hope that Unilocal,I mean helps :)

I have used Clausen Engineers since 1989 for more than a dozen projects. I was in the process of purchasing a brick building when I was hurt in the 1989 Cypress freeway collapse and used Clausen Engineers to design a voluntary retrofit of the building. Since that time we have used their services for our contracting buisiness whenever we need «seimic design» for our contracting work throughout northern Ca. They have a qualified staff, family owned and would recommend them if you need this type of engineering service. Kenneth Lind, Bakery Equipment Service, Richmond CA

We had a similar experience.
Received an initial estimate that was $ 2000 less then the final bill without any warning or justification.
On top of that the work was complete almost 4 weeks later then promised.
One star is generous.

My wife and I used Clausen Engineers in 2007 for a major remodel to our 1911 Craftsman-​style house. We lifted our house 5 ½ feet and moved it Eastward 2 ½ feet to better center it on our property. Senior engineer Paul Trousdale was smart, creative and offered a lot of solutions to keep costs down. Paul worked very well with our architects to maintain the period-​style of our house. We are very pleased with Clausen Engineers.

Clausen Engineers, Emeryville CA.
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Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
We hired Clausen to conduct a pre-​purchase structural inspection of a home we were in escrow to purchase. It was a fixer so we wanted to have a thorough structural inspection to alert us to any major issues. Not only was Clausen’s bill 60% higher than the original quoted cost but they missed an important structural issue. (Contractors were all over the problem minute they saw a faulty beam.) That ended up costing us a lot of money. If we had known about the issue we certainly would have used it in the final price negotiations with the seller of the home.
As if that was not annoying and costly enough, Clausen was dismissive and insulting when we tried to bring up the issue of the inflated bill and the less-​than-​thorough work. And those are the politest words I can muster to describe their communications. The most galling was their admission that for the inflated cost of $ 800 (vs. the $ 500 quote) they in fact only did a «cursory review» of the home.
Here’s my cursory review of their service: It was a waste of our money, and in fact is going to end up costing a lot of money. Don’t make the same mistake we did; avoid using Clausen if you actually expect to get a thorough and quality structural inspection.