Structural Engineer in Orem, Utah
One of the more dramatic settlement cases the engineer has inspected was near Artesian Road and Springwater Park in southwest Orem. The southeast basement corner was about 11 inches low, with the southwest corner about 8½ inches low. The repair required 23 helical piers. That part of Orem sits on old lakebed sediment and was historically pond ground. The street name Artesian and the nearby Springwater Park are not accidental names.
On the east side, the engineer inspected a home near 900 East and 1800 North that had been built into the Orem bench. The uphill side had been cut into the hillside, while the downhill side appeared to be supported on fill. Over time, the fill settled, producing heavy basement slab cracking, doors out of square, and foundation movement.
Orem also has a lot of homes from the 1960s through the 1990s, and many of them are now being remodeled. That creates a different kind of structural problem. At a home near 800 West and 200 North, the engineer found notched joists, a single top plate, missing headers, and an undersized awning beam. At another home near 400 East and 900 South, the attic clear-spanned from exterior wall to exterior wall, so the main-floor interior walls were nonstructural, while several basement walls below were carrying floor loads.
There are older homes too. The engineer has inspected an Orem home from the 1920s with rough-cut floor joists and framing details that you simply do not see in modern construction.
That is what makes Orem interesting structurally. The west side can involve old lakebed and groundwater conditions. The east bench can involve cut-and-fill settlement. The older central parts of town can have framing that predates modern construction practices. And many of the homes in between have been remodeled, added onto, or altered several times.
When the engineer inspects an Orem home, the basic questions are usually the same: what is carrying the load now, what has moved, and why?
The owner of Crossroads Engineers, Garth Haslem, grew up in Orem in a home built in 1959, on the west side of 800 East near 400 North. At the time, the east side of 800 East was mostly orchards and, to the perception of a child, the edge of civilization. Old-timers will remember the Diagonal, the road that ran from the University Mall area toward BYU Stadium. Orem was a very different place back then.
The engineer has watched Orem grow from a relatively small orchard community into one of Utah Valley’s major cities. University Mall became University Place, neighborhoods expanded west toward Utah Lake, and beautiful homes climbed the eastern bench beneath Mount Timpanogos.
Orem is unique in another way: when the orchards were removed in favor of residential housing, the roots to the trees were left in place. This gave rise to a healthy and thriving population of termites, especially in northeast Orem. This affects the structural picture when performing assessments in that area.
Having grown up in Orem and inspected homes throughout the city, the engineer appreciates how much the structural conditions can vary from one neighborhood to another. The older homes near State Street and Center Street present different challenges than the newer developments and hillside properties to the east. Orem has changed tremendously over the years, but it will always feel like home to the engineer.