The Conflict of Interest
The Seattle seismic retrofit market is built on a dangerous premise: that the company executing the construction should also control the engineering.
When you hire a volume retrofit contractor who brings in their own "in-house" or partnered engineer, you lose your advocate. This creates a fundamental conflict of interest:
The engineer's legal obligation
To rigorously protect public safety and the structural integrity of your home.
The contractor's financial obligation
To complete jobs as quickly, cheaply, and profitably as possible.
When the contractor pays the engineer, the engineer works for the contractor — not for you. Some companies eliminate the distinction entirely — the same person acts as both engineer and contractor. This is marketed as efficiency: one point of contact, seamless process. In reality it means there is no independent party at any stage. The person writing the engineering is the same person installing it and profiting from it.
Mercer Seismic exists to fix that. We are your engineer. We work for you.
How the volume model bypasses real engineering
01
The Permit Illusion
Homeowners assume a city permit means the engineering was verified. It does not. The city checks for minimum legal compliance, not structural performance. A permit is a disclosure. Not an engineering review.
The fast-track process exists for good reason — the City created it to encourage voluntary retrofits, recognizing that more protected homes means a more resilient city. The problem is not the policy. It is volume contractors exploiting a public safety program designed for good-faith homeowners to push high-margin commercial jobs through without engineering scrutiny.
Mercer Seismic
We review the actual engineering, not the paperwork. A stamped report from us means a licensed engineer analyzed your specific structure.
02
The Prescriptive Plan
When custom engineering isn't required, contractors default to free, one-size-fits-all municipal templates. These plans have narrow eligibility criteria — essentially a simple box on a flat site. Contractors self-certify eligibility on the honor system. Complex homes get forced into generic templates just to clear a paperwork hurdle, leaving unique seismic load paths unresolved.
Mercer Seismic
We design for your specific home. No templates, no generic plans. Every load path is calculated from your actual structure.
03
The "Paper Mill" Engineer
When a home can't pass the prescriptive checklist, contractors don't hire an independent advocate — they hire a high-volume engineering partner who rarely visits the site, operates remotely, and rubber-stamps generic details. The stamp is used as a selling point. The homeowner thinks they're getting custom engineering. They're buying a seal.
Mercer Seismic
Our engineer visits your foundation. We stamp what we've actually seen, measured, and calculated. No remote assessments.
04
The "Spray and Pray" Install
Even a sound plan fails without independent oversight. Unmonitored crews prioritize speed — wrong nail sizes, epoxy injected into dirty holes, pre-drilling skipped on old timber. When generic plans hit real-world obstacles, there's no engineer on-site to resolve it. Crews improvise. The load path gets abandoned. The shiny steel in your basement is theater.
Mercer Seismic
We inspect the physical installation against our engineering. What we design, we verify. The work is accountable to our stamp.
What independence actually means
We have no financial relationship with contractors.
Mercer Seismic does not sell construction. We have no volume quota to meet and no contractor relationships to protect. Our only obligation is to you and to the structural integrity of your home.
When we stamp a plan or sign an audit report, we are staking our professional license on it. That is what a real engineering advocate looks like.
Ready to work with an engineer who works for you?
Whether your retrofit is already done, in progress, or just being quoted — we can help.
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