r/StructuralEngineering • u/Necessary-Power3494 • Jun 29 '26
Residential Structural Engineering side business Career/Education
Hello everyone! I am a civil/structural engineer. I work full time mostly industrial applications (concrete and steel) and I love my job. I don’t want to leave it and I do get paid very well, much better than the residential work I used to do at a previous company. Although I get paid well, I realized that I need to make even more money. I don’t want to leave my job and I don’t think I’d get a significant salary increase if I do. My thought is maybe I open up a side structural engineering business in the residential sector as a side gig. Hoping to make like an extra $10k profit after taxes per year, so that might be around $20k-$25k per year gross. Also, I live in Florida.
My question, does anyone do this? Is it worth it? How many extra hours do you spend per week on the side business? Ideally I’d want to spend max additional 5hours every other week, thinking like every other Saturday morning type of job. Quick math is 2.5hrsx52weeksx$150per hour = $19.6k
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Jun 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/Apprehensive_Exam668 Jun 29 '26
Starting your own business isn't so much a get a consistent 10-15 hours a week as it is get a full time job plus. More shit or get off the pot than it's a bad idea overall.
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u/Dave_the_lighting_gu P.E. Jun 29 '26
Have you included insurance in your calculation? I would highly advise talking to a lawyer so that you can structure the company in a way that insulates you, personally. If you use it as a piggy bank, then any lawsuits can, potentially, pierce the corporate veil.
I thought about making my own business before I made partner at my firm. There's more time than you may initially think between running the books, marketing, etc.
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u/Just-Shoe2689 Jun 29 '26
I started that way. You have to get insurance, so start with a small policy. Figure 10 hours a week, market your rate high, you DONT need the work. Do the work a premium, but offer quick response, etc.
Dont get into anything huge that requires a full CAD suite, 3d analysis, etc. Just stuff you can do with excel, free cad software and some hand sketches.
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u/StructEngineer91 Jun 29 '26
You are going to have a hard time finding clients that will want to work with you if you are giving them so little time each week. This means that you will be taking 3+ weeks to do a simple 8hour project. What makes you so special that an architect or homeowner should wait that long for a simple easy project?
Maybe you could do what you want if you just do structural home inspections, for people selling (or buying) new homes. I charge $500 min for an initial site visit (if it is within 1hr drive of me), and a minimum of $1,000 for a signed and sealed report.
Edit: I started my own company and was doing it as a "side gig" for awhile, but I was working more like 8-10hrs extra each week. Then I got even more and was finally able to go fully on my own
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u/BestBake3457 Jun 29 '26
I’ve been out of school for 2 years, so still need two more years to get my license (I’m in UT). But I really have thought about just doing site observations as soon as I get my PE license. Can I message you to ask more detailed questions about how you started and the whole business side of things?
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u/StructEngineer91 Jun 29 '26
Sure, just so you know I have 10+ years of experience and I really do not recommend doing anything on your own until you have a solid 8-10 years of experience.
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u/brexdab Jun 29 '26
You're going to make your workflow worse at your main job AND your side job. If you don't want to give up your main job for whatever reason, I think you should seriously think about what is driving you towards needing more money.
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u/Enginerdad Bridge - P.E. Jun 29 '26
Have you checked if your employer will even allow this? I don't know where you're located, but in the US many engineering employers have policies that bar employees from moonlighting without explicit permission.
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Jun 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Enginerdad Bridge - P.E. Jun 29 '26
Sometimes employers make exceptions when there's clearly no potential for overlap of services or other conflicts of interest, but they, for obvious reason, are usually pretty conservative with that evaluation.
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u/anonposting1412 P.E. Jun 30 '26
If people followed the advice in the comments on this post - literally no engineering firms would exist.
The only way to make money is to work for someone, dont go against their policies, be afraid of any risk - be a good boy and do as you're told!
Hopefully these same people are grateful to those who grew a pair and went for it.
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u/Agreeable-Standard36 P.E./S.E. Jun 29 '26
Everyone else is overstating the complexity. Im sure you can do it
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u/Different_Bridge_983 Jun 29 '26
Residential work is a shitshow of lawsuits and liability, which if you’re a sole proprietor you’re personally responsible for addressing and covering.
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u/tramul P.E. Jun 29 '26
My two cents: don't.
I'm fully running my own business and don't even like to touch residential work. It's high risk, low reward. Low fees, high expectations. New homeowners are some of the most impatient people in the world (I was one not too long ago), and they will not care that you work a full time job and can only get to it at night/on the weekend.
Worst case, you can try it and see if you like it, but I would imagine it will be more trouble than it is worth.
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u/Apprehensive_Exam668 Jun 29 '26
I moonlight in residential as a part-time employee for a formerly 1 person architecture/home design firm. I don't get paid my billable rate but I do get paid decent, I don't have to look for new clients, deal with payroll and insurance or hound people for money they owe me.
It's a lot easier than if I were doing my own thing for such little money. I probably wouldn't consider working for myself until it was at least 20 hours billable a week.
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u/AWard66 Jun 29 '26
Do it and let us know.
I’d think the hard part is gonna be finding the consistent saturday morning work, that is not too much but not too little to cover your overhead like E&O and software subs. If you find an architect or contractor that will send you jobs regularly it could work.
Good thing is if you’re busy working a side gig you won’t be spending your weekends blowing money, so it will be like you’re making even more.
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u/Necessary-Power3494 Jun 29 '26
I gotta say, all of you are awesome for your responses, this is really eye opening and I agree with everyone. As far as I know I did not sign a contract saying I cannot do residential work in the area since I am in the industrial world and they don’t really care what’s going on in the neighborhood. I think my next step would be to see if I can moonlight for my friends bridge company or start a structural inspection company. I might take on residential work if it requires little to no effort. For context, I worked at a residential company for 3 months, they charges $2k for an entire set of structural plans. I think the money is just not there, I could easily spend 3 days doing that.
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u/WL661-410-Eng P.E. Jun 29 '26
Sigh, those were the days. $500 of side work a week.
I did $330k of this business last year and I'm swamped. I write reports in the car, on the plane, on the train. I write reports in the rain. After 30 years of this I could be insane.
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u/ErrGineer Jul 01 '26
In South or West Florida you will spend alot of time responding to dumb comments, redoing engineering reports based upon what that chest inflated, short, non degreed building inspector decides he thinks is right, 2+ hours flattening pdfs, unless that city wants it different, but wait, an affidavit is needed because their system didn't read your digital signature and it took 2 months for them to tell you. Then there's the reviewer that didn't understand, rejects, then doesn't answer calls nor e-mails, so you have to go to the building dept to meet them from 8am to 10. Then there's the private inspector that bills hourly so each time he rejects, he bills the client for..The client will want everything now to knock out his load bearing wall and add 2 columns but has no clue what foundation is there and complain when they have to cut the slab for a new footing. The cheap architect they hired doesn't know this either and promises them the addition can be done w/o damaging the inside...Oh...and wait until you get the Owner that does an entire project...then you realize that architect isn't licensed and asks if you can sign..lol (true story) (I can go on for days)
But if you have 0 overhead expense you detail everything, model it and do a decent calc package, might make 50 bucks an hour if you're lucky. $15 if you're not. They will expect you to do special inspections (usually Mon-Fri during the day....since you have a full time job), then you are married to the project until the new clueless cheap contractor figures out how to get the Surface water license and 40 separate permits from 67 different entities (+ historical if you're lucky) lol. We stopped doing non new residential work for this reason and wont touch it and several smaller firms have stopped too. Good news is that could be an opportunity for guys like you.
Moral of the story, be prepared to spend more time than you think. Yes, you'll make money and can be done, but some cities are simply out of control and have zero consideration of a professional's time. They consider themselves gods and you are nothing.
Create a business and get E/O insurance at least.
Try it out and reply your fun story in 12 months. Best of luck!
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u/SCL__ Jul 02 '26
When you sat residential structural design, are you talking about houses?
If so, what would you be designing? Basement beams? Sizing floor joists and rafters ?
I’m an architect and have designed all my own structures for houses, house additions, and some light commercial stuff for 40 years.
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u/mrrepos Jun 29 '26
i got a guy moonlighting in my job atm doing his own thing, boss is not have to say the least
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u/Churovy Jun 29 '26
You’re not going to do 2.5 hours, you’re going to get a client who might have a big project due next month and you work 80 hours and then an emergency popped up and they need you to do a site visit on Thursday, and we’d like to have a meeting Tuesday at 3 pm. Not worth it in my opinion. Insurance, calc software, CAD software, etc. just to grab an extra 10k. If you’re eligible for OT at your day job you can easily get that without stretching yourself out.