Civil engineering
On a flat lot the civil scope is small. On a hillside it governs everything — how much you cut, where the water goes, what the retaining walls cost, and whether the pad you drew can legally exist. We would rather find that out in week two than in plan check.
What is residential civil engineering?
Residential civil engineering covers what happens to the ground: grading, drainage, retaining walls, earthwork quantities and erosion control. On a sloping lot it is the work that decides whether a design is buildable at all, and it is usually the first thing a hillside plan check asks about.
What you get
- Grading plans
- Cut and fill design, pad elevations, slopes and daylight lines.
- Drainage design
- Surface flow, area drains, dispersal and connection to the street.
- Retaining walls
- Design and detailing, coordinated with the structural package.
- Earthwork quantities
- Cut and fill volumes, so the excavation can be priced honestly.
- Erosion and sediment control
- The plans required for construction on a graded site.
Questions we get asked
- Do I need a grading permit for my project?
- Usually if you are moving earth beyond a small exempt quantity, cutting or filling on a slope, or building a retaining wall above the exempt height. Thresholds differ between the City of Los Angeles, LA County and the Ventura County cities, so it is worth confirming against your specific jurisdiction before design starts.
- Why does drainage keep coming up in plan check?
- Because a building department will not approve a plan that concentrates water onto a neighbouring property or leaves it against a foundation. Showing where every surface flow goes, and how it gets to a legal point of discharge, resolves the most common hillside correction before it is issued.
Guides on this
Removing a load-bearing wall in California: gravity is the easy part
The beam that replaces the wall is straightforward. What the wall was doing for the house in an earthquake usually is not.
Can your foundation take a second storey?
The existing footings were sized for the house that is there. Adding a floor roughly doubles what they carry and changes what the house does in an earthquake.
Do I need a structural engineer for my remodel?
When a California residential permit requires stamped structural drawings, what the engineer produces, and how to tell before you commit to a designer.
Where we provide this service
- Civil engineering in Agoura Hills
- Civil engineering in Calabasas
- Civil engineering in Westlake Village
- Civil engineering in Thousand Oaks
- Civil engineering in Hidden Hills
- Civil engineering in Malibu
- Civil engineering in Woodland Hills
- Civil engineering in Sherman Oaks
- Civil engineering in Tarzana
- Civil engineering in Encino
- Civil engineering in Beverly Hills
- Civil engineering in Brentwood
- Civil engineering in Bel Air
- Civil engineering in Pacific Palisades
- Civil engineering in Los Angeles
Send us the address.
Tell us the property and roughly what you want to build. We come back with what the zoning allows, the likely permit path, and a fixed fee for the first phase.