Documents or a site visit, depending on conditions
Repair Specification Letters, Sealed by a Texas PE
Something structural is damaged and somebody has to say exactly how it gets fixed. This is that document: the repair specified in buildable detail, sealed, and written so plan review and the contractor read the same thing.
Opening soon
Sealed Engineering is not yet accepting orders. Firm registration is pending with the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, and no engineering services are being offered or performed under this brand until it is granted. Founding customers on the waitlist are contacted first when ordering opens.
What a repair specification contains
A repair specification is a design for a repair. It identifies the damaged element, states what the element is required to carry, and specifies the repair in enough detail that a competent framer can build it without calling anyone: members, sizes, grades, fastener type and pattern, plate or plywood dimensions where a scab or gusset is used, and the sequence where sequence matters.
Where the repair depends on shoring, the shoring is part of the specification. Where the repair cannot be executed as described without exposing something, that is stated too, along with what happens if what gets exposed is worse than expected.
The damage this usually addresses
The situations below account for most of the volume, and the truss cases are the most urgent of them because a modified truss is frequently carrying more than the person who cut it realized.
- Cut, drilled, or notched joists and rafters, usually where a plumber or an HVAC installer needed a path.
- Cut or damaged truss webs and chords, including field modifications made without approval.
- Rot and termite damage at sill plates, band joists, beam ends, and posts.
- Fire damaged framing, where charred members have to be evaluated for residual section.
- Impact damage from vehicles, falling trees, or equipment.
- Water damaged floor framing and subfloor, particularly at bathrooms and exterior walls.
What this document is not
It is not an insurance claim document. Sealed Engineering does not prepare claim support, does not solicit claim work, and does not write anything framed to argue causation for a carrier. A repair specification says what the repair is, not who should pay for it.
It is also not a cause and origin investigation. If the question being asked is why the damage happened rather than how it gets fixed, that is a different engagement and the intake will say so rather than delivering a document that does not answer the question that was asked.
What arrives
- A sealed and signed letter identifying the damaged element and its required capacity.
- The repair specified: members, sizes, grades, and fastener type, size, and pattern.
- Details or sketches for scabs, gussets, sisters, posts, and connections.
- Shoring and sequencing requirements where the repair depends on them.
- Any conditions requiring re-evaluation once concealed areas are opened.
- Digital PDF with the seal applied, suitable for permit submission and for the contractor.
Frequently a document review from photographs and measurements. A site visit when the extent of damage cannot be established remotely.
What has to exist first
An engineer seals what the evidence supports, so this list is the work rather than the paperwork around it. Anything missing is named rather than assumed.
- Photographs of the damage from several angles, with something in frame for scale.
- The member size, span, spacing, and what it supports.
- The extent of the damage: length, depth, and how much section is lost.
- What caused it, if known, and when.
- Whether the area is accessible or has to be opened.
- Property address, jurisdiction, and any code enforcement or plan review notice.
Repair Specification Letters: common questions
A plumber cut through a floor joist. Is that repairable?
Usually yes, and the repair depends on where the cut is along the span and how much of the section is gone. A notch near a bearing point and a hole through the middle third are very different problems. Photographs with a tape measure in frame answer it faster than any description.
Somebody cut a truss web. How serious is that?
Serious enough to treat as urgent. Trusses are engineered systems where every member is carrying load, and cutting one redistributes forces the rest were not designed for. Do not load the area, and get the specification before anything else happens in that space. Truss manufacturers will not approve field modifications, which is why this reaches an engineer.
Can fire damaged framing be repaired rather than replaced?
Sometimes. Charring is self limiting and a member can retain useful section beneath it, but that has to be measured rather than assumed, and heat affected steel connectors are a separate question from the wood. What the specification does is separate what can stay from what has to go, which usually reduces the scope compared with replacing everything in the room.
Will my city accept a letter, or does it need drawings?
For a single damaged member a sealed letter with a detail is normally what the reviewer wants. Multiple members across an area, or anything altering the structural system, tends toward a small plan set. The intake establishes which before work starts.
Can you write this for my insurance claim?
No. Sealed Engineering does not prepare insurance claim documentation and does not write anything intended to support a claim. If a repair specification is needed for permitting or for contracting, that is what this deliverable is, and what a carrier does with it afterward is between the owner and the carrier.
Where this is ordered most in Texas
Wind speed, soil, and the permit office all change by market, and so does what this document has to address. These pages are written for the market rather than templated across it.
Often needed alongside this
- Documents or site visitStructural Letters for PermitsPlan review asked for a sealed letter and the project stopped. This is the deliverable that restarts it: a specific structural question answered, sealed, and addressed to the reviewer who asked.What it contains
- Documents or site visitBeam and Header Sizing LettersTaking a wall out, or opening one up. The beam gets sized against the real loads, the bearing gets checked, and the load path gets followed all the way down instead of stopping at the ceiling.What it contains
- Site visit requiredFoundation Repair PlansThe repair designed before it is bid: pier type, locations, depth, and design load specified by an engineer who is not selling the piers.What it contains
Need a repair specification letter?
Start with the property address and we will tell you exactly what else is needed.
Opening soon. Founding customers get first turnaround slots.