Areas served · West Virginia
Forensic Engineering in Charleston
In and around Charleston
What we investigate in Charleston
Charleston sits where the Kanawha Valley's chemical industry meets a dense, century-old downtown pinned against steep hills. Chemical-plant fires and explosions, hillside slope movement, and river flooding drive the losses we are called to sort out. We document what actually failed, and a licensed engineer responds within 24 hours.
The conditions we see in Charleston
The Kanawha and Elk rivers flood a narrow, developed valley floor, and the National Weather Service office in Charleston ties the region's worst events to fast, heavy rain falling on already-saturated ground, including the deadly June 2016 flooding that swept the surrounding counties. Above the valley floor, homes sit on steep hillside lots carved into cut-and-fill slopes, where slow slope movement and drainage failures crack foundations and rack framing in ways easily mistaken for ordinary settlement.
The built environment concentrates the risk. Charleston's East End Historic District holds hundreds of buildings, mostly brick and frame dwellings from roughly 1900 to 1930, carrying slate and clay-tile roofs, wood porches, and stone or molded-concrete-block foundations. That aging masonry near the century mark, the hillside frame homes on fill, and the valley's chemical-process facilities each fail in their own way, and separating those causes is the engineering question behind most local claims.
How we help in Charleston
The evaluations Charleston cases usually call for
- Slope, foundation, and masonry evaluation
Cracking on a Charleston hillside can trace to slope movement on cut-and-fill, a drainage failure, foundation settlement, or a defect in aging masonry near the century mark. Our licensed engineers evaluate the structure and the ground together and document which one caused the damage rather than assume it.
Our structural engineering services- Flood, water, and construction-defect investigation
After Kanawha or Elk River flooding, we determine what the water did to the structure and whether the damage traces to the flood, a pre-existing condition, or construction, and we investigate the defects that surface in older valley-floor and hillside stock, grounding each conclusion in the physical evidence.
Our forensic engineering services
Fire origin & cause
Fire origin and cause in Charleston
The Kanawha Valley's Chemical Valley corridor puts process plants and industrial facilities alongside a dense residential core, and the stakes are real: the 2008 Bayer CropScience tank explosion at nearby Institute killed two workers. Add aging knob-and-tube wiring and overloaded circuits in century-old brick and frame housing, and origin and cause here can hinge on evidence that is destroyed in the first hours after a loss.
Our NAFI-certified investigators work to NFPA 921: a systematic scene examination, burn and char patterns traced back to the area of origin, and analysis of the electrical, mechanical, and process systems, carried to a defensible accidental or incendiary determination. We preserve the evidence before it is lost, put the finding in writing, and testify to it at deposition and trial.
Fires we investigate
- Residential and commercial fires
- Industrial and process-plant fires and explosions
- Electrical and appliance fires
- Heating-system and space-heater fires
- Vehicle fires
Common questions
Forensic engineering in Charleston, West Virginia
A different question about your case? An engineer, not a call center, answers within 24 hours.
How do you tell hillside slope movement from ordinary settlement?
The movement pattern and the site tell the story. A slope failure on a cut-and-fill lot loads a structure differently than settlement, so we evaluate the ground, the drainage, and the damage together before assigning a cause.
Can you investigate an industrial or process-plant fire or explosion?
Yes. Chemical Valley process facilities fail in specific ways, and our NAFI-certified investigators apply NFPA 921 to determine origin and cause, evaluate the equipment and systems involved, and preserve the evidence for the claim or case.
Do you charge travel to reach Charleston?
No. We work Charleston-area cases from our Omaha lab and Los Angeles office with no travel charges, and a licensed engineer responds within 24 hours.
Have a loss that needs answers?
Tell us what happened. An engineer, not a call center, will review your case.