Aesir Engineering, PLLC

Buyer beware- ask a lot of questions before signing on to Aesir Engineering! My wife and I recently completed a road and utilities project with Mikael's design and were disappointed with the pace of the design, the constant changes needed, and the overall customer experience. I know the city is constantly updating it's design codes, but we assumed it was Mikael's professional responsibility to stay current with city codes- apparently not. We had to resubmit plans at least twice for changes that city engineers indicated should have been known. Additionally, much of the final project could not be completed without the assistance of two separate survey companies, something we were not made aware of at the time we submitted our retainer for Aesir. Our excavating and paving contractor mentioned that most engineers are able to provide this service, Aesir could not. My final complaint is that at the end of the project, after nearly 18 months of working with Mikael (and paying all our bills immediately), he would not send us the final as-built plan "until he received our check." This seemed like a complete lack of trust and professionalism towards reliable clients. We will be looking elsewhere for any future engineering needs.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION

My wife and I hired Mikael to design a strawbale addition for our house and it was a complete waste of money. He refused to use the lateral system we requested (LIB straps or other system not using engineered wood or metal). I clearly outlined our requirements before signing his contract, and not only did he accept the contract knowing he could not meet our needs, he continued to charge us throughout the process until we were forced the terminate it and lose our money and a year of time working on the project.

Mikael’s logic for refusing to use the LIB system we requested was that because the county had not adopted the IBC appendix for strawbale homes, he was required to use the commercial building code for a residential house.

We called the county, and they said they had not adopted the IBC appendix because they wanted to be sure that each home was engineered, and if they had adopted, anyone could design their own home, but that they expected engineers to use the IBC appendix as a reference when engineering strawbale homes.

The LIB system we requested was used in the 2 county approved strawbale homes that we had toured prior to starting the project, one of which was a close neighbor to us (so under identical zoning requirements). We contacted another engineer, and this is what she said: “I would agree with your current engineer if this was a commercial job however for a residential project I am very open to using steel angle bracing with wood posts and beams."

We were still hoping to work with Mikael at this point (silly us) but then we learned from the builder who recommended him that the last strawbale house he designed was “unbuildable and way too expensive.” That is when we terminated the agreement, and requested a refund of our deposit (as we had paid him along the way for his work). Mikael refused to respond to our email (as he had done once previously). That was when I mentioned the possibility of a bad review, and he promptly responded….though he only refunded $140 of the $500 deposit and $360 payments….. and even had the audacity to send us a bill that included $90 charge for “correspondence.” After refusing to answer our emails!
Though, I am very grateful for the small refund, and thank you Mikael for that! Atleast it allows me to believe that you might acknowledge some fault in this wasted year.

If you want an engineer who will build a residential home to commercial code, Mikael could be a good fit for you! But if you just want a house that is engineered to residential code as required, I do not recommend him.

As a final note, it appears that Mikael got one of his friends to post a 5 star review prior to me posting this review. I am skeptical that Michael Rosenthal actually used Aesir engineering to design anything, as he does not specify his project, etc.