Keep Landmarks Standing — Historic Preservation Engineering in Savannah
For twenty-two years, Ashworth has kept the Lowcountry's landmarks standing — reading what two centuries of brick, timber, and tabby are saying before drawing a single repair. Preservation is engineering at its most patient, and ours is licensed, published, and trusted by the strictest review boards in the South.
Restraint Is a Structural Discipline.
Most engineering fixes a problem by adding something. Preservation engineering earns its fee by adding as little as possible — the smallest intervention that makes the building safe, reversible wherever it can be, and invisible from the sidewalk. Ashworth's engineers are trained in both worlds: modern analysis and the historic construction it has to respect. We know what a tabby foundation forgives, what heart pine can still carry, and when a crack is a story rather than a warning.
- ✓GA-licensed PEs, preservation-trained
- ✓Interventions designed reversible and minimal
- ✓Trusted by review boards from Savannah to Charleston
A Century or Two, Carefully Carried
Courthouses, warehouses, sanctuaries, and homes — every structure here is older than the code that now governs it, and every one is still standing straighter than when we met it.
What a Preservation Engineer Does
Six disciplines for buildings that predate the code — from the first honest assessment to the paperwork that funds the work.
Why Landmarks Trust Us
Diagnose Before Prescribing
Monitoring, borescopes, and mortar analysis before any repair is drawn. Half the 'failing' historic structures we assess need far less than the first opinion claimed.
Repair in the Original Grammar
Lime with lime, timber with timber, iron with iron. Repairs in the building's own materials move with the building — and pass review the first time.
Documentation That Funds the Work
Our assessment reports become tax-credit narratives, grant exhibits, and insurance evidence. Forty-six million dollars in credits say the paperwork matters.
The Greenest Building Is the One Already Built.
Savannah's warehouses, mills, and schoolhouses were engineered for loads their builders couldn't name — and most will carry a new century of use if someone does the structural math honestly. We find the capacity hiding in old frames, design the quiet reinforcement where it runs out, and keep the fabric that made the building worth saving.
- ✓Load studies on original timber, masonry, and iron
- ✓New systems threaded through old structure
- ✓Review-board and SHPO approvals managed
Listen. Diagnose. Repair. Endure.
The same patience for a townhouse or a courthouse — the building sets the pace, and the evidence sets the scope.
Listen & Research
Archives, Sanborn maps, and prior repairs reviewed before site work — the building's history usually explains its symptoms.
Diagnose & Monitor
Crack gauges, moisture readings, and material analysis separate active movement from settled history. We prescribe nothing until then.
Design the Repair
Minimal, reversible, and in the original grammar — detailed for craftspeople, specified for review boards, priced for real budgets.
Oversee & Endure
We stay through construction, verify the craft, and hand over a maintenance plan measured in decades — because that's the unit these buildings think in.
Every Engagement Includes
PE-Sealed Assessments
Georgia and South Carolina licensure, with reports written to stand before review boards, lenders, and courts.
Materials Analysis
Mortar, timber, and metal tested before specification — so repairs match the chemistry, not just the color.
Review Board Fluency
Submissions prepared in the language of historic district commissions, SHPOs, and the Park Service.
Craft-Level Details
Drawings scaled to the trades doing the work — masons, joiners, and ironworkers, not just general contractors.
What the Stewards Say
Three engineers told us to demolish the carriage house. Ashworth spent a morning in the crawlspace, found the original heart-pine sills sound under a century of bad patches, and designed a repair that saved the building — and about half the demolition quote.
Their tax-credit documentation was so complete the state reviewer called it a model submission. The credits funded a third of the restoration — money we'd have left on the table without them.
Ashworth understands that a preservation engineer's first job is restraint. Every intervention they drew was reversible, minimal, and invisible from the street. Our review board approved the plans in one sitting.
Asked Before the First Visit
My historic house has cracks. Should I be worried?
Usually not — most cracks in old buildings are history, not emergency. The question is whether they're moving. A monitoring assessment answers that with gauges and a return visit, and it costs a fraction of the repairs an alarmed first opinion tends to generate.
Will repairs have to look modern?
No — that's the point of hiring preservation-trained engineers. Repairs are designed in the building's own materials and methods wherever structurally honest, and concealed where new strength is required. The street should never know we were there.
How do historic tax credits actually work?
Federal credits return 20% of qualified rehabilitation costs, and Georgia adds a state program on top. The catch is documentation — the structural narrative and before-and-after evidence must satisfy the Park Service. That paperwork is one of our core services, and it routinely funds a quarter or more of a project.
Can an old warehouse really carry residential or office loads?
Very often, yes — 19th-century industrial buildings were built for loads heavier than apartments. We prove it with load studies on the actual materials rather than assuming failure, and reinforce only the spans where the math genuinely runs out.
What does an assessment cost?
A focused structural assessment of a typical historic house runs in the low four figures; full landmark condition surveys with materials testing are scoped individually. Every report comes with prioritized recommendations — what's urgent, what can wait, and what's fine.
Do you work outside Savannah?
Yes — the practice covers the Lowcountry from Charleston to the Golden Isles, and we take landmark work across Georgia and South Carolina. Old buildings travel well as a specialty; the materials and the review boards are cousins everywhere we go.
Give the Building a Voice at the Table.
Send the address, the age, and what concerns you — a preservation engineer replies within one business day with a first read.
Tell Us About the Building
Age, construction, and what worries you — that's enough for a first read and an honest scope.
- Visit us24 East Bryan Street, Suite 300, Savannah, GA 31401
- Call us(912) 555-0158
- Email usstudio@ashworthpreservation.com