South County Design Group is a Rhode Island civil and structural engineering firm. We design residential, commercial, and industrial projects to the 2024 IBC as adopted in Rhode Island (RISBC-1, RISBC-2 with the December 1, 2025 revision), with structural drawings stamped and sealed by a Rhode Island Professional Engineer. Our practice is centered on coastal residential work — pile-supported foundations in V zones, breakaway-wall detailing in AE zones, and ASCE 7-16 wind-load analysis for the high-exposure conditions Rhode Island's shoreline imposes.
Structural analysis and design: structural steel, reinforced concrete, engineered lumber, wood framing, light gauge steel, masonry, and ICF.
Complete residential plans with engineering services as required. 3D designs developed in Chief Architect and 3D structural models developed in AutoCAD.
High-performance building envelope design, energy modeling, and proprietary Net Zero software analysis. Our integrated engineering and financial optimization platform connects the complete pipeline — thermal envelope, mechanical equipment, electrical, solar PV, and battery storage — to a 30-year financial proforma in a single model.
Foundation design from standard spread footings to deep piers, grade beams, and helical piles. Engineered for site-specific soil and code conditions, including coastal flood zones.
Structural design for structures located within FEMA V, Coastal A, and A zones. NFIP compliance, wave action analysis, and coastal resilience.
Wind load analysis, shear wall design, hurricane tie-downs, and anchorage systems for Rhode Island's high-wind coastal environment.
Gravity, cantilever, and reinforced retaining wall design.
Site grading, drainage design, and civil engineering for commercial and residential projects.
Permitting assistance for CRMC, RIDEM, and building permits. Zoning review, setback analysis, and regulatory support for coastal and environmentally sensitive sites.
We provide licensed structural engineering services for residential, commercial, and industrial projects across Rhode Island. The structural drawings we issue are signed and sealed by a Rhode Island Professional Engineer and prepared under the 2024 International Building Code as adopted in Rhode Island via RISBC-1 and RISBC-2, including the December 1, 2025 revision.
Our wind-load analysis follows ASCE 7-16. Deliverables typically include Main Wind Force Resisting System (MWFRS) pressure tables, Components and Cladding (C&C) pressure analysis for openings and roof zones, and uplift loads at every hold-down and anchor location. We model framing in RISA and engineered lumber in Forte Web; HVAC and envelope coordination uses Wrightsoft. For the regulatory basis of these wind loads, see our Wind Exposure Categories in Rhode Island primer.
Foundation design varies sharply by FEMA flood zone. In V zones, we design elevated structures on driven or helical piles with the lowest horizontal structural member above the Base Flood Elevation plus freeboard, and we coordinate the breakaway-wall details NFIP requires below it. In AE zones, we use shallow foundations where soils permit, with breakaway construction at the enclosure perimeter. In Coastal A zones — areas subject to wave action between 1.5 ft and 3 ft — we apply V-zone design philosophy where the project warrants. Our Coastal Flood Zones in Rhode Island primer walks through the regulatory map.
A continuous thermal envelope cannot be designed in isolation from the structure that holds it together. The structural decisions — pile spacing in V zones, roof framing depths, knee-wall layouts, beam placement at exterior corners — determine where every thermal bridge will land and how much insulation can be installed without compromising structural depth. We coordinate envelope details with the architect and energy consultant from schematic through construction documents.
We size cooling and heating loads to ACCA Manual J in Wrightsoft and produce a load report sized room-by-room for the HVAC contractor's Manual S equipment selection. Solar PV mounting is engineered to the actual roof framing — racking attachments, uplift verification, and reinforcing where panel layouts diverge from rafter spacing. Stationary battery storage requires floor-load verification and seismic anchorage; we design both for residential and small-commercial installations.
For the full integrated-modeling approach we use across the envelope, mechanical, solar, storage, and 30-year-proforma chain, see our Net Zero Engineering for Rhode Island Homes primer.
Coastal Rhode Island construction often involves multiple jurisdictions in parallel: the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) for shoreline-adjacent work, RIDEM for wetlands and stormwater, and the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) for the building permit itself. We prepare and stamp the structural drawings the AHJ requires, and we provide the structural inputs the architect or surveyor needs for CRMC and RIDEM submissions. Civil and environmental permitting is led by your project's land surveyor or environmental consultant — we coordinate but do not own those workstreams.
For most coastal residential projects, the structural deliverable is a stamp-and-seal package covering foundation, framing, lateral system, and connections, sized to the wind and flood-zone conditions of the specific lot. Typical turnaround from receipt of architectural plans to issued structural drawings is two to four weeks for a standard residential project.
Most residential projects on the Rhode Island coast follow a recognizable arc. The structural engineer's involvement is heaviest at the start (site analysis and foundation strategy) and at the end (issuing the stamped permit set), with construction administration in between. Below is the path a typical Charlestown, Westerly, or South Kingstown coastal residence travels from initial site review to issued drawings.
Before any framing or foundation decision is made, we work out the design envelope at the site coordinates. That means pulling the FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) panel, identifying the flood zone (V, Coastal A, AE, or X), looking up the Base Flood Elevation, querying the ASCE 7-16 Hazard Tool for ultimate design wind speed (Vult) at each Risk Category, assessing upwind fetch for Exposure Category, and confirming whether the parcel falls inside the 1-mile Wind-Borne Debris Region. The CRMC jurisdictional line (200 feet from Mean High Water, plus any Special Area Management Plan overlay) is mapped at the same time. The output of this phase is a one-page site-constraint summary that the architect uses to shape the schematic design.
Foundation type is the largest cost-and-schedule decision on most coastal projects. We work with the architect (and the soils engineer if one is engaged) to pick among driven timber piles, helical piles, micropiles, drilled shafts, or conventional spread footings depending on the FEMA zone, the soil profile, and the elevation of the lowest horizontal structural member required by NFIP plus owner-selected freeboard. On most south-coast outwash sites, helical piles are the default; on bedrock-bearing Newport sites, conventional footings or rock-socketed micropiles are typical.
Once the architectural plan stabilizes, we model the framing in RISA and the engineered lumber in Forte Web. The lateral system — shear walls, hold-downs, drag struts, and the continuous load path from roof diaphragm through foundation — is sized to the MWFRS wind pressures the site's Vult and Exposure Category produce. Components and Cladding (C&C) pressures are calculated separately for windows, doors, and roof zones. Hurricane straps and uplift connections are specified at every framing member where ASCE 7-16 demands them — not just where the prescriptive table suggests.
The deliverable is a stamped and sealed structural drawing set: foundation plan, framing plans by floor, lateral details, schedules (footings, posts, beams, hold-downs, anchors), and the wind-load summary tables. The architect or owner submits to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) through Rhode Island's statewide e-permitting portal or the town's local OpenGov or ViewPoint Cloud system. For coastal-jurisdiction work, the same drawing set supports the CRMC application that runs in parallel.
During construction, we field RFIs, review shop drawings on engineered lumber and steel connections, and visit the site for foundation, framing, and pre-drywall observations as project size warrants. For elevated coastal projects, the pile-installation report (logging penetration, torque, and capacity verification) becomes part of the permanent project record alongside the stamped drawings.
Under RISBC-2 (the residential code, as revised December 1, 2025), engineered structural design is required when prescriptive provisions of IRC 2021 cannot be satisfied — which is the case for nearly every coastal residential project. Triggers include: any structure in a FEMA V or Coastal A zone, any structure where the ultimate design wind speed exceeds 130 mph (which covers all eight of our published coastal service areas), any roof or floor span that exceeds the prescriptive tables in IRC R301, any addition that loads an existing structure beyond its original capacity, and any project of more than three stories of habitable space. Commercial work under RISBC-1 requires engineered design as a default. When in doubt, the building official is the deciding authority, and we are happy to coordinate the determination at the front of the project before design effort accumulates on the wrong side of the prescriptive-vs-engineered line.
We provide structural engineering services statewide in Rhode Island. For our coastal towns, we publish detailed service-area pages with the wind exposure category, FEMA flood-zone breakdown, and project-type focus the local site conditions impose:
V-Zone and Coastal A Zone foundation rules, freeboard, Base Flood Elevation, and what they require on a Rhode Island coastal lot.
How envelope, mechanical, solar, storage, and a 30-year proforma combine into one integrated all-electric design.
ASCE 7-16 Exposure B, C, D explained — the 5,000-foot fetch test and 600-foot inland extension that pick the category at your site.
South County Design Group, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Kenneth A. Hayes, P.E., Rhode Island Professional Engineer license #7252. Ken stamps and seals every structural set the firm issues. For full credentials, project history, and how we work, see the About page.