Buyers keep finding SurfZone in the same situation: a home inspector or contractor has said something alarming about a foundation, the purchase-and-sale clock is running, and they need a structural engineer this week. The firm is based in Chestnut Hill and describes itself as a Massachusetts-registered structural engineering practice led by Dr. Farzam Maleki, PE, with a principal consultant and a senior engineer alongside him, covering Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, Somerville, Newton, Quincy, Worcester and Lowell.
What customers describe most is judgment, not just paperwork. In March 2026, someone buying an 1850 house with a fieldstone basement got a short-notice inspection and said Farzam separated the fixes that would stop a bouncy floor from the ones that mattered for long-term stability — without turning the visit into a scare. Another March 2026 caller phoned in a panic after a contractor's evaluation, was fitted in before the inspection period closed, and had a written report a few days later.
The most concrete story is from August 2025: a small HOA with roof leaks in a basement-level garage had been told it needed to rip up and rebuild the entire shared patio, a five-figure job. Farzam came out the following week and found three already-installed but unmaintained patio drains nobody knew about, with the engineering report following within days. On Nextdoor in June 2026, a Belmont neighbor described using the firm for a concrete garage evaluation and I-beam support required by their insurer.
The work runs past inspections into design: an urban roof deck design in July 2025, a retaining-wall inspection and replacement plan for a condo association in April 2025, a roof structural analysis in a 2023 review, and a 2025 review from an architecture firm describing 3D diagrams included so clients and contractors could follow the details.
The one thing to nail down is scope and payment terms. A December 2025 reviewer said they had signed an agreement to open walls for an investigation, that the engineer declined to cut the holes or work from a ladder and planned to return once the walls were open, that they were asked for $1,400 before he left, and that the second visit was quoted at another $1,400 — and they considered the interim report incomplete. Nothing else in the writing echoes that account, and the last nine reviews are all positive.
For a pre-purchase structural opinion, a foundation crack that nobody will explain, or a stamped plan a contractor can build from, this is a reasonable call. Agree in writing what a single visit includes, what triggers a second one, and what each costs.