Rebuilding after the fires means designing to a code that has moved on. Current California energy compliance pushes toward all-electric, heat-pump homes, and the permit counters are backed up. Red Brick Engineering is California-licensed, actively stamping Malibu rebuilds, and built to turn permit-ready mechanical, electrical, and plumbing sets around fast.
The house that burned was likely permitted under an earlier energy code, often with gas appliances that no longer pencil out under current Title 24 compliance. All-electric space heating and water heating with efficient heat pumps is now the practical path to compliance, and that reshapes the mechanical and electrical design from the ground up. Rebuilding to the pre-fire drawings is not an option; the set has to be re-engineered.
We design Malibu and Palisades wildfire rebuild MEP to that all-electric baseline from day one — all-electric space conditioning, heat-pump water heating, and an electrical service sized for the loads that go with them. That means no surprise redesign when the plan checker opens the file, and no compliance rework mid-permit.
Plenty of firms will drop a nameplate heat pump on a schedule and call it all-electric. We size the system to perform at the conditions it will actually see. Manufacturer capacity is published at a 47°F rating point, but a heat pump's real output falls off as the outdoor temperature drops — a unit rated at 47°F can lose a large share of its capacity at a design low near -13°F, which is where an undersized system quietly hands the load to backup resistance heat. We size to the actual design temperature and specify equipment that holds output.
The same discipline covers air density. At elevation, thinner air carries less heat per cubic foot, so the standard 1.08 sensible-heat multiplier overstates capacity; we apply a high-altitude sensible-heat correction so cooling, heating, and airflow are sized to the air that's actually on site. That rigor comes from our cold-climate and high-desert work, and it makes for tighter, better-behaved systems on the coast too — electrical, mechanical, and plumbing coordinated as one design rather than three siloed markups.
Rebuild timelines are unforgiving. Owners are paying for temporary housing, insurance clocks are running, and architects are juggling a queue of clients who all lost homes in the same event. Red Brick delivers permit-ready, coordinated MEP sets on a fast production schedule, and we design in Revit within ACC / BIM 360 so we plug straight into the architect's model instead of slowing it down.
Every set is complete and coordinated for submittal, with Title 24 documentation handled as part of the deliverable — not a loose end you chase down after the drawings are 'done.'
On every Red Brick project, principal engineer Zach Larson stamps mechanical, electrical, and plumbing himself. You are not chasing three separate consultants or hoping their sheets agree — one licensed accountable engineer owns the whole MEP package. For a rebuild, that single point of accountability is the difference between a smooth permit and a round of finger-pointing.
We are California-licensed and already working Malibu rebuilds, alongside Title 24 healthcare and senior-living work in the state such as the Mojave Narrows Chateau senior living center in Victorville. This is not a firm learning California code on your job.
We built Red Brick around repeat relationships, and rebuild work rewards that. Once we know your details, your submittal habits, and the AHJ's preferences, each subsequent set moves faster and cleaner. Architects and developers handling multiple wildfire rebuilds get a consistent MEP partner across the whole portfolio — same engineer, same standards, same responsiveness — rather than re-explaining the assignment every time.
Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing — designed and stamped by the same principal engineer.
