residential vs. commercial

huangyhg

residential vs. commercial ?
i currently work with a company that won't touch residential house design work unless it is in the millions, so i don't know much about the residential market (houses).
i would guess residential work is more variable than the commercial market for structural engineers, but to what extent i don't know.
i'd love to hear feedback and experiences on the percieved/actual differences between working in the two markets in terms of job security, income, problems/issues, overall experience, competition, etc.
my fairly uninformed opinion is that commercial work would be more secure, slightly higher income, less chance of being sued, and easier due to working with more proficient architects, but with more complicated and intricate designs involved.  am i way off?  would it be worth pursuing a residential design job with the idea that it would be easier to get my own company going in residential vs. commercial?
i work in the uk so my perspective may be some way off for us.
i did six months in a residential design office and i've never worked harder. there is little technical challenge but plenty of scope for developing time and cost saving procedures. most of the engineers had never designed anything more significant that housing and had no intention of doing anything else but what they did they did well. the cad technicians actually ran the show and on many occasions i was given a complete set of drawings - ga, setting out, drainage and rc details before i had even started the design! it is the nature of the work that they were usually right.
i enjoyed it and would have spent longer working there if personal circumstances had not intervened. i would not however has stuck with it long term as i like new and varied challenges...
my experience with structural design of single family residences is that they are more complicated than commercial buildings, believe it or not.  simple residences are designed by personnel at lumber yards, and do not require structural engineering.  so when a structural engineer is asked to get involved on a residential project, it will be on a complicated project (e.g., i designed a residence last year on a steeply sloping site--i had concrete basement walls spanning horizontally to perpendicular concrete shear walls, etc.).
i think you need to be as diversified as you can reasonably be when starting a new company.  you will eventually find your niche markets.
daveatkins
you are far more likely to be sued for a problem with a residential project.  this is because most of the time this is a person's life saving and it's their dream home.  if there is the slightest thing wrong, they will want it fixed.  plus, they will live in the house and have the opportunity to notice things that nobody else would notice.  commercial clients are generally less picky.
most of my 8 years experience is with commercial. last year i got a job with a company that does 90% residential, custom homes, spec homes, pole barns, additions, etc.
at my other companies, i would work on about 3 or 4 projects per month. here i work on about 3 or 4 projects per day (or more when its busy). we do a lot of residential foundation inspections as well (somebody has a crack in their foundation and is trying to sell the house - the prospective buyer wants an engineer to look at it...) it is quite lucrative, you have much fewer hassles with an egocentric architect changing his mind a week before the project is due.
bottom line: i enjoy residential more than commercial. i do miss designing steel braced frame buildings, one-way slabs, and the like, but those kinds of projects filter in about once every month or two - to keep me on my toes. and i do think it would be easier to start your own company in the residential market, with room for smaller commercial additions, metal buildings, warehouses, etc. to make a name for yourself in the community, and then branch out to commercial when you are ready for it - but that's just my opinion.
pray like everything depends on god
work like everything depends on you.
it takes a lot of sacrifice to start competing in the residential market.  like others already mentioned, residential is more complicated (detail intensive) and have higher probability of a lawsuit.  what i meant by sacrifice is, if you don't have any typical details to begin with, prepare to make no money from the first few residential projects.  spend time establishing details for standard wood framed construction.  first few jobs, you will make close to minimum wage (assuming you have no typical details).  once the baseline details are available, it is a matter of "assembling" the construction drawings, focus more on calculations and special details.  without that initial sacrifice, there is no way to compete with so many engineers (qualified or not) who work for next to nothing.
like cegg, i also find residential more "enjoyable" because you really are making someone's dream come true.
i don't like residential projects - designing or inspecting.  engineers have a hard, if not impossible, time in oklahoma getting residential contractors to follow the framing material specs, connections specs and details, foundation specs and details, etc...  don't know what it's like in other states, but just about anyone with a hammer can build homes in oklahoma. and they do.  they resent engineers telling them what species and grade of lumber to use for the framing, recommendations for connections or use of holddowns and clips/straps, recommending how the foundation needs to be constructed/reinforced.  regardless of the home size, they want to use a single panel of wood sheathing on each corner and don't understand why that may not be adequate.  my experience is that the contractor will talk the homeowner out of doing what i recommend because i'm specifying things no one else does (in oklahoma anyway).  unless a city requires a structural engineer's seal and performs construction inspections, the contractors do what they want.  some are conscientious enough to follow the residential building code, but not enough of them.  unless an insurance company is footing the bill for the inspection, i refuse to do the inspection.  most homeowners and sellers don't want to pay what it's worth to accept the liability for an opinion or recommendation for a solution to a problem.
i worked for years on commercial buildings. when i started my own company, i took whatever came in for a while and a lot of it was residential. it varied from multi million dollar houses to foundation inspections. i agree with a lot of what the others have said. i find architects that primarily do houses to have a much poorer understanding of engineering and construction than commercial architects. make sure you are an expert of wood design and engineered lumber. i do a lot of foundation inspections and structural inspections of homes and it is very profitable and simple to do. a lot of times the town will not require a seperate set of structural drawings for a home and the arch will want you to just markup their plans. be prepared on how you are going to handle this. houses can get tricky. when it is complicated enough to bring in an engineer, there is usually a lot going on. there is the famous "floating roof" where there are 9 slopes, 55 hips and valleys, and the arch tells you you cant post down. ive done garages over basements, strange balconies, houses with so much weight from stone veneer and slate roofs that i had to do a regular seismic design on, houses in hurricane prone areas, etc. you do see some interesting stuff. its not the same as a commercial building where 90% of the building is the same as every other one you have done and you can size the typical beams in your sleep. thats my two cents.