How to Compare Residential Structural Engineering Firms in Texas

What Should a Foundation Repair Report From a Texas Engineer Contain?

The state sources we read set how a report is sealed and signed. None of them gives a required list of contents for a residential foundation report, so the contents come from what the profession has written down. The Foundation Performance Association publishes peer-reviewed committee papers on the subject. Its current list includes guidelines for evaluating foundation movement (FPA-SC-13-1), test methods for evaluating existing foundations (FPA-SC-02-0), a paper on distress that is often mistakenly attributed to foundation movement (FPA-SC-03-1), guidelines for evaluating performance by monitoring (FPA-SC-12-0) and drainage guidelines (FPA-SC-17-0). The list below is our reading of those papers and of the sealing rule, written as a checklist. It is not state law, and a good report from a firm that does it differently is still a good report.

1. A named engineer, a date and a seal or signature. Section 137.33 of the board's rules says the seal tells the reader that the named engineer did the work or directly supervised it.
2. What was observed and how it was measured. A report that says "the foundation has settled" without saying what was measured leaves you nothing to compare against a second opinion. Look for the method, such as floor elevations or crack mapping, and the movement criteria the readings were held against.
3. Other causes that were considered. Paper FPA-SC-03-1 summarizes distress in homes that is sometimes mistakenly attributed to foundation movement, so a report should say what else was ruled out.
4. Drainage and the ground around the house. The FPA drainage paper covers the effects of site drainage on foundation performance, and HGS Engineering's terms point to perimeter soil moisture for the same reason.
5. A recommendation, separate from a bid. The engineer says whether repair is indicated and what it should accomplish. A price and a crew belong to a contractor.
6. The limits. What the engineer could not see, what the opinion rests on, and who may rely on it.

HGS Engineering's own foundation inspection report covers the conditions observed at the time of the inspection, permitting requirements and drainage recommendations, as described on the foundation inspection page. Its terms say that opinions rest on information from the owner and on conditions observed, and that the firm is not responsible for subsurface conditions without geotechnical data or for concealed cracks the owner has not uncovered. Those terms are public on the agreements and limitations page, so you can read them before you book.

How Do You Check a Texas Engineering Firm on the State Roster?

Go to the firm search on the board's website and type in the firm number or the name. You will see a Status and an Expires date. Active is the status you want, and the board defines it as a current and valid registration. Delinquent means the renewal is overdue. Expired and Inactive are not valid for active engineering. Searching returns nothing? Either the registration lapsed over a year ago, which drops it from the roster, or the firm is filed under another legal name. Ask the firm for its number and try again.

The law behind the roster is short. Under Occupations Code § 1001.405, a business may not engage in the practice of engineering in Texas unless it is registered with the board and the practice is carried on only by engineers. The same section limits who may use words such as "engineer" and "engineering" in a business name. A firm that shows up with those words and no registration has a question to answer.

We counted the roster file ourselves. It holds 12,619 rows. Of those, 7,390 are active and carry a Texas address, and 3,565 of the 7,390, or 48.2%, have "engineer" in the registered name. The figure shows when the 7,390 Texas-address registrations expire.

1,097 of the 7,390 is 14.8%. Most will renew. Still, a registration that lapses next month is not the same as one running to 2028, and only the Expires field shows which you have. Keep in mind what the registration covers: the business. The engineer who signs holds an individual license, listed on a separate board roster you can reach from the same page.

What Can a Texas Engineer Sign, and What Can't They?

Texas draws the line wide. Under Occupations Code § 1001.003, engineering includes investigation, evaluation, analysis and expert opinion. It also includes engineering for the repair of real property. So working out why a slab moved is engineering, and so is designing the fix. Section 1001.301 bars anyone from being paid for engineering without a license. A foundation evaluation sold for a fee should therefore carry an engineer's name.

Rule 137.33 sets the limits. An engineer seals only what they did or directly supervised, and the seal means they answer for it. Final plans and drawings get the seal, signature and date. Opinions, recommendations and evaluations get a printed name, a date, a signature and the letters P.E. A seal is optional there. Work released early has to say so on its title sheet, with its purpose, the engineer, the license number and the release date, plus a line that it is not for construction, bidding or permits. If you see that line, you are holding a draft. Do not pass it to a contractor as the final report.

Two limits are easy to miss. An engineer cannot seal work they did not do or supervise, such as another firm's drawings. And nobody can report on what they could not see. If the crawlspace was never entered, or flooring covers the slab, or no one bored the ground, the report can only say so. That is why the limits section sits on the checklist.

Should the Engineer Also Sell the Repair?

You can test this without accusing anyone, because the roster shows the name each firm registered. Of the 7,390 active Texas-address rows, 158 (2.1%) carry the word repair, construction, builders, piering, leveling or underpinning in that name. We counted words in names. We did not judge any firm, and some of those businesses do careful work. But the firm that says what is wrong and the firm paid to fix it are sometimes one company, and the registered name is the quickest place to see it.

If they are, ask how the report is kept apart from the bid. The FPA publishes a paper on the standard of care for engineers and other professionals working in Texas (FPA-SC-18-0), which is a useful thing to ask a firm about. HGS Engineering says on its foundation inspection page that it is independent of repair work, so a repair recommendation in its report has no job attached to it.

Seven Questions to Put to Any Firm

How Does HGS Engineering Answer Them?

Read this part as a firm describing itself. HGS Engineering is registered with the board under Texas Firm #21268, in Arlington, and the roster downloaded October 16, 2026 shows the registration running to January 31, 2029. Heath Salmon, PE visits the property, records the conditions observed and writes the report. The firm says it is independent of repair work, publishes its terms, and quotes its fee on request.

If you want named firms rather than criteria, the Fort Worth list shows six firms, HGS Engineering among them, as met or not met against eight printed criteria, and says in its first paragraph that it is the firm's own list. The structural design page covers the design side, and the North Texas soil data shows how much expansive clay sits under each county.

How Were These Numbers Made?

Method: a script reads the board's roster file, which is saved in this site's repository, and writes the counts to a summary file. Active means the expiry date is after October 17, 2026. A Texas address means the state field reads TX. The repair count matches whole words in the registered name, such as repair, construction, builders or piering. Each cited page was fetched with curl on October 17, 2026 and saved with its HTTP status. A gate reruns the script before each build.