In second grade, Helen Watts declared that she wanted to be an engineer and build things. With a passion for turning design on paper into structures and buildings, Helen and Nathan Powelson, who also knew from a young age that he wanted to go into engineering, make up the structural expertise leaders at Criterium Engineers.

We sat with Helen and Nate, delving into the back-story of this powerful duo and how they are changing how engineering is done, turning it into a collaborative team process with the help of ClearCalcs. 

# About Criterium Engineers

Founded in 1957 and now one of the US-leading structural engineering consulting firms, Criterium Engineers helps building owners, homeowner associations, real estate investors, and contractors understand the buildings they own, manage, or purchase. 

In Helen’s own words: “We do a different bunch of core things at Criterium. One of them is what you call a traditional design shop, and then we also do reserve study for condominium associations, as well as building inspections.”

# How Criterium Engineers supercharge their design workflow with ClearCalcs

Across its offices, the company reviews about 200 engineering designs annually, 75% to 85% of which are done in ClearCalcs. 

“When structural things come up, it’s my job to make sure everyone in the organization know about it.”

One of Helen’s role as the structural expert leader is to allocate structural design work to the team within the organization. The design query could come externally from customers, or internally from Criterium Engineers’ many offices around the country, and the designs can vary from a straightforward to complicated.

## Speeding up routine design analysis

“The majority of our calculations, unless it’s something very odd, are done in ClearCalcs.”, Nate said.

According to Nate, in a lifecycle of the project, a client may approach Criterium and say, “Hey, I want to do this to my building. And we’ll say, okay, we can do some of that, but we can't take out all the supports in your house unless you want to run steel beams and turn it into a moment frame. And they're like, oh, that sounds expensive. We thought this was going to be pennies on the dollar.”

“And then we take what we do in ClearCalcs into CAD, or have someone drafted it, send it to the client.”

Nate concurs to the power of ClearCalcs in speeding up their work as a team.

![how_to_change_materials_clearcalcs.gif](https://clearcalcs-prod2-cms.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/how_to_change_materials_clearcalcs_e927842b24.gif)

“Here [at Criterium Engineers], we seem to get one request a week: ‘Hey, if I put this steel beam on the bottom of this 200 year old timber, how much strength do I get?’ Getting a program to do that versus spending hours writing through that is something that we're highly interested to save time.”

## Handling complex design and calculations

Every once in a while, Helen said, a complex design comes her way that her team wants her ‘to fix’.

“For example, just about a week and a half ago, Nate said to me, ‘wow, this is another really weird connection.’ I'm like, yeah, there's another one coming. And the only way that I can evaluate them is by using tools like ClearCalcs.”

“We had a guy who wanted to put a roof deck over the entrance to his little residential building.  He wanted basically no post and VMS (visible means of support). So we gave him one option, and we gave him another one which is a whole lot simpler and cheaper. We run this all of this scenario in ClearCalcs.”   

“Anyone can design a new building, it takes a real engineer to figure out how to get new and 120 year old framing to play well together.“, Nate quipped. 

“I also like the speed at which you can do the what-ifs with the utilization checks”, Helen added.

![utiization-checks.gif](https://clearcalcs-prod2-cms.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/utiization_checks_08e98d1649.gif)

“For example, a client wanted to get rid of the rafter ties, so Nate and I got on Zoom and I said, what if we do this and the utilization check lights went all red. What if we stick it this way? And we got the green light. I like the way the painful stuff are now speedy”.

## Reviewing projects across teams 

Structural engineering review is an important part of the project workflow at Criterium Engineers. Every project is reviewed by another engineer before it goes out.

“Criterium is really big in that nothing goes out without getting a second review,” Helen says.

Doing the design in ClearCalcs and being able export the printout  means our calculations are legible and other engineers can review it.

![[BLOG] printout-example.jpg](https://clearcalcs-prod2-cms.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/BLOG_printout_example_c5f754db1c.jpg)

“Part of the reasons why we went with ClearCalcs was when we looked at the various programs, Nate liked the output on ClearCalcs and how the platform explains what was going on. It meant it was easier for him to review my works and vice versa.”, Helen says.

“I like that I can follow ClearCalcs on my own”, added Nate. 

“Nate and I work really well together because I come from construction and he from the design side of it. So, we’re very yin and yang, and I think it makes our design much stronger when we work together”.

# What has improving their design workflow with ClearCalcs done to Criterium Engineers?

Criterium has more than 30 franchise offices across the United States and Canada, comprising mostly of mechanical, electrical and civil engineers. 

“And if they need to know anything about structural engineering, they will normally ask Nate or me.”

Using ClearCalcs has really transformed the way Criterium team collaborates with each other. In addition to the webinars they host to share knowledge with the franchise offices, Helen said the ability to run analysis collaboratively on ClearCalcs online means there is a cross pollination of knowledge that makes the engineers in her team smarter.

“If you want to go and do something, I’ll say, let’s get on Zoom, bring up ClearCalcs and I’ll talk you through it.”

How Criterium Engineers is changing how engineering is done, turning it into a collaborative team process with the help of ClearCalcs. 

# About Dynamic Analysis

[Dynamic Analysis](https://dynamic-mt.com/) is a boutique civil and structural engineering firm based in Billings, Montana. The company focuses on offering specialized consulting for residential and low-rise commercial projects.

We recently caught up with Sam, Dynamic Analysis’ Principal and an experienced engineer in mining, transport, and manufacturing construction. 

# The Challenge

According to Sam, Dynamic Analysis generally deals with an equal split of designing for new builds - whether they are additions, remodels, or entirely new buildings- and reviewing repair plans. 

“Our workflow is generally drafting a model of what we’re building, and then breaking them into sizing beams and foundations before using a program to determine environmental loading for wind and snow.”

While the company has used a structural design analysis and calculations software in addition to its own Excel spreadsheets before, Sam said, one of the limitations the team encountered was that the structural members are not tied together. 

“We’ll go through each structural member and go back and forth between drafting and running calculations. When there’s a clash in size, we would go back, reiterate through the building again.””The [product we used] was so cheap before that it just made tolerating the bugs and issues fine, but, when [the product we used] updated their pricing, all of a sudden it didn’t make a lot of sense.”

# How ClearCalcs helps

For Sam and his team, after starting to use ClearCalcs late last year. ClearCalcs has become the tool they use for almost all of their projects.

“We are juggling 7 to 9 projects right now with many more coming in. Most of them, small stuff, anything from people just wanting to open up a bearing wall and put a beam in which [ClearCalcs] has been pretty handy for, and then to just full new residential houses.”

“The usability of the software has been nice. It is very clear to see what the software is doing when it comes to the calculations.”

## Linking Loads Dynamically 

One feature that Sam found most valuable in ClearCalcs is being able to [link the load path dynamically](https://support.clearcalcs.com/article/24-linking-reactions-between-beams-and-columns-load-path-tracking) from one structural member to another. 

“Easily the worst part when using [the previous product] is having to update the calculations if we make any changes and having that roll through everything.”

Before using ClearCalcs, Sam and his team usually generate a printout that gave them individual dead loads, live loads, snow loads, and wind loads for each member. 

“So anytime there’s a change, you got to go back, start over and redo the first calculation, get those loads, pull up the next calculation, read over from one screen what those load reactions were, and enter them individually. It was just a massive time suck to make one small change.”

With ClearCalcs’ load linking feature, reactions between members as point loads or line loads are dynamically tracked, so the loads inherited into the lower member are always updated automatically.

“Just the simple feature of being able to link load is a really big time-saver,” Sam said.

## Automatically Generated Loads

Having the option to use presets in ClearCalcs’ calculations was also a useful feature for Sam and his team. 

For example, getting access to different presets like ridge beam, roof rafter, or ceiling joist with prefilled settings in [wood beam calculations](https://clearcalcs.com/calculations/us/timberBeamASD) means they can save time in their projects.

“Being able to be specific about what type of beam you’re using is really nice. If we’re sizing a Ridge Beam, it just automatically throws in what our snow loads are. All we need to do is assign the width of the building and then pick our beam; that’s the only two inputs it requires. It’s already got all the loads in there, and it figures out the tributary area and knows what forces are coming down on it. It just takes like  30 seconds.”

“It’s not something I ever really thought I needed, but it’s a handy feature.”

## Helpful Reports

The ClearCalcs’ automatically generated and standardized reports have also been indispensable to Sam and his team.

“We generally use the printout for our internal checks. When someone puts together a calculation, and it’s ready for review, we run through and look at what assumptions they’ve made in their calculations.“

“We find ClearCalcs report way more helpful than some of what we’ve seen in the market. For example, [with the previous product], I’d print out a report, and I just had no idea if it worked or not. It basically just puked out a ton of information, and I find myself asking, is this okay or not?”

In contrast, having ClearCalcs printouts break down our calculation into all the different failure modes and into what’s governing or where it’s failing is very valuable to Sam. 

“Especially for repair plans, then we can really demonstrate if we had got an issue, we can just run through existing conditions and say, okay, this is this type of failure or bending failure. When we run this member through with these loads, we’re seeing we’re at 400% capacity.”

“So everything checks out that this thing is failing in bending, we need to make something stronger.”

“We also keep a little catalog of all of our calculations. Depending on the jurisdictional area, they’ll sometimes require a calculation set for a permit plan review, so we’ll use those.”

Dynamic Analysis needed a new direction for their structural design calculations and how ClearCalcs offers them what they needed and more. 

# About Ward Engineering

A Civil Engineering graduate of the University of Pacific (UOP), California, Matt started his engineering firm, [Ward Engineering](https://www.wardeng.net/), in 2010 as soon as he was licensed. The company specializes in structural engineering services, primarily for residential buildings. 

“So we do houses - beams, columns, footings, and shear walls lateral design - that’s kind of our bread and butter,” Matt explained.

“Say someone buys a five-acre lot and wants to put a house on it. They're going to need engineering calculations and the plans reviewed stamped. While we don't make the design plans so much, we come in to do the engineering for the house and do what's called a shear wall plan.”

In addition to Matt as the Principal Engineer, his company has now grown to include another two design engineers in his team.

“The first year I did work in 2010, I did one project and that was like a big deal. I was super proud. We’re now at 144 projects so far this year, and probably 300 total before the year’s end.”

# The Challenge

Matt has used structural engineering software, Enercalc for most of his engineering calculations since 2015. A colleague recommended the alternative design software StruCalc and Matt found himself exploring a new solution. 

“I went on the web, and I was searching for StruCalc. And then I came across ClearCalcs, which I've not heard of before.”

“I saw I could do a  free trial. So I checked out the software and got really impressed.”, Matt explained.

## Flexible analysis outside conventional design

Matt added that he searched for new software because he needed to design rafters at a pitch a few years ago.

“With Enercalc, you can only do flat beams. You can’t do pitches. So that was the only reason I was searching for anything, and I came across ClearCalcs”, Matt said.

“Anytime you're getting outside a conventional rafter design where you can use a table, you've got to do something custom. It's not accurate to model a beam in Enercalc because you’re modeling a beam that's at an angle as being flat. So being able to do this in ClearCalcs was a big deal.”

“I also found being able to specify the number of plies for your beams in ClearCalcs useful. Because sometimes you’ll have a multiplied beam, which was not a feature available in Enercalc.”

## Load linking a time-saving feature

According to Matt, while he still uses Enercalc for all his projects, there were certain things the software didn’t have, like load linking. 

“The biggest thing I noticed about ClearCalcs that made me a believer was the load linking. That was a big deal because it’s something I have emailed Enercalc before saying, ‘hey, you guys should think about doing load linking’”.

About half of the work Matt and his team do are beams, columns, and footings. In residential design, you have a roof with loads on the beam, the beam has loads on the columns, and the column has loads on the footings.

“Anytime you’re manually taking reactions on them, there’s a chance you’re going to mess it up.”, Matt said.

“You're going to mess up the direction of the load. You're going to mess up the quantity of the load, whether it's roof load, dead load, or live load, and there's a chance you're going to mess up - once you go back and say the loads change on the beam and you did not go back and update that column or the footing.” 

In ClearCalcs, Matt only needs to link the load reactions between beams, columns, and footings in the same project. Anytime there is a change to any of the calculations, the reactions will be updated automatically. 

## Pre-loaded presets for beams and columns

“The other thing I like with ClearCalcs is that where in Enercalc there’s just wood beam calculator, you guys break it down to what types of beams it is.” 

For instance, in ClearCalcs, when designing a header, the calculator automatically accounts for the weight of the wall above it.

“I had designed the headers for years, but I had never considered the weight of the wall directly above it, which may be one foot or two feet. But that is something you should consider, especially if it's stucco and things like that”.

To Matt, as a designer, the feature offers him a cheat sheet and gives the default for his calculations, so there’s less time spent on his end figuring out the calculations manually. ”It makes your life easier when you’ve got the calculations broken down based on the type of beam it is. For instance, I've never had to do a rafter calculation until recently, when I had to do one for our project, and I looked through in ClearCalcs, and I'm like, oh wow, there it is right there, man.”

“It just makes my life easy. Compared to doing it manually, ClearCalcs sure saved me hours.”  

# How does ClearCalcs pave the way for Ward Engineering’s rapid growth? 

To Matt, how he views structural design software for his work is like an investment for his company’s growth.

“Yes, it costs money, but you spend money to make money, and the money you make is based on the time you're saving because you're able to get these designs done much faster.”

Reiterating his love for the presets again, Matt said: 

“I would never consider not having this level of software. I use the presets all the time, especially deck presets like deck joist and deck beam. The combination makes it easy because it asks you what the spacing is. It's like a template set up right there for you. So you do not have to reinvent the wheel.” When we asked Matt to describe ClearCalcs, Matt quickly complied, “I would say that ClearCalcs is a structural engineer's best friend. That's how I would put it because it makes your life easier than any other software I'm familiar with and easier means more money, easier means higher profitability”.


Matt Ward started his practice, Ward Engineering, in 2010 and has since grown his company from running his first project to 144 projects this year. We sat with Matt about how ClearCalcs is essential to his company's growth and profitability. 

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