Thanks!

Finding a good trustworthy and reasonably priced contractor is one of the most difficult parts of the ADU process. My contractor is super busy. He’s not only a general contractor, but he’s into flipping houses, remodeling houses, managing/maintaining properties, etc. And he’s only working off personal referrals.

I think every city might require slightly different blueprints to meet their specific codes. Search the city of San Diego for a free set of ADU plans. Those plans are similar to what my city asked and those are the so called blueprints. Depending on the project, site and city, the required reports will vary. I’m in a flat area with no soil problems, so my city did not require a soils report nor a site survey. For the “new from the ground up” detached unit, no structural engineering was required. For my existing attached garage conversion, structural engineering was required. Both units required an energy report. That’s all that was required in part because both units are small (under 500 sqft and under 50% of my main house sqft). No calculations for plumbing, heating, ac, etc. were required. When pulling permits, the city asks for the size of the heating/ac unit and the size of the tankless water heater in BTUs to charge you the permit fee. In fact, the build permit fee asks for electrical, plumbing, mechanical, etc items to calculate the build permit fee which was around $1200 for me.

Thank you sir. Your so helpful and doing much appreciated community awareness for those that don’t know where to begin.

My city did not require solar for my detached unit when the plans were approved in 2019. Im not sure what changes to the energy code happened after my approval.

That's good news.

The detached unit is 16x28. I split it down the middle to divide kitchen/living-room from the bedroom/bathroom/laundry/closet area. The bedroom is very close to 9.8' wide by 13.2' long including the closet. The shower/toilet is 6' by 6'. THis layout is my own design that I came up with and had a draftsman turn into blueprints. Dimensions of the rooms are impacted by the thickness of the walls both interior and exterior which are different thickness.

@@MHam1 Thanks for your info.. sorry for the questions ,but people who have went this route usually have good answers... Thanks again

Let me clarify. There’s two parts. One is getting the plans approved by the city. This is the part that I did myself on the guest house. I was the runner between the drafter and the city. It cost me $500 less, but it took a lot of my time to pick up plans and deliver to drafter and resubmit to city. The approval process took 6 months if you were the runner or the general contractor is the runner. I thought if the general contractor was the in between person that the process would be shorter because they know what they are doing. I think it took a week or two longer to do with general contractor, cost $500 more, and quality of plans were inferior. So, it depends if you have time to be the runner or not, but I felt more in control doing my own plans The second part is pulling the build permits. In both cases, the GC pulled build permits with his license but I was there at city hall to pay the permit fees directly to city.

Welcome 😊

The project took 13 months from the time I hired the drafter to the certificate of occupancy. The plans took 7 months and the construction took 6 months due to covid. It was supposed to take 4 months before covid. In terms of cost savings, know what you want and don’t have change orders that cost money. Change orders can cost a lot of money to repaint the walls, change the kitchen layout, add a wall, etc. Also, you can save money by sticking with standard materials and avoid premium materials. I really don’t have any regrets. I might do a video in the design things that I might do differently, like I didn’t want a door to the room but I should have added a door to the room, I didn’t want full barn doors on a 9-foot wall to wall closet but I should have had put full doors. Other than that, it’s been great.

@@MHam1 Oh yeah! a "design things that I might do differently" video would be cool! Sounds like having a fully formed plan from the beginning definitely helps. Did you ever consider vaulted ceilings? Did you get a price for that?

The garage conversion ADU will have vaulted ceilings. I originally wanted a mid-century style detached unit, but my city wouldn't let me do a single pitch roof higher than 12 feet and I needed like a 14-foot roof on one end. Those were the restrictions back in 2019 prior to the new 2020 ADU rules. Now you can do 16-foot roofs, so I could have done my mid-century detached unit with one side being 12-feet high and the low end being 9-feet high. I like the Joseph Eichler architecture. www.pinterest.com/pin/618963542526976377/ www.pinterest.ie/pin/397301998376850140/ www.thespruce.com/stylish-shed-designs-4176096

Appliances were $3k for gas stove, over the range microwave, refrigerator, and stacked laundry center. If i mentioned $8k, it included the blueprints and permits which were another $5k or so.

@@MHam1 I know you did one ADU in 2019. Do u think $200 sqft is good for 2021/2022 times?

Hi Joe, I'm currently not tracking the cost of materials nor labor that closely, so it's hard to say. The supply chain issues are still not fully resolved and labor costs are now going up. You can use the $200/sqft estimate, but again the only thing that matters is the contract you make with a general contractor and the payment schedule based on completed work and passed inspections.

No, i didn’t check on a larger unit. Right now I’m hearing that wood costs have doubled since two years ago. And other materials have gone up in price. Back in 2019 when I signed the contract, I would estimate that adding another 200 sqft would have cost about $25k more. Recently, my friend who referred the contractor to me asked him about building a 2bd/1ba detached ADU around 600 sqft and the verbal estimate was $100k. I’m unable to share the drafters services. I wasn’t pleased with their work.

@@MHam1 thanks! I'm assuming 70-100k is for only construction? How much is a reasonable expectation for soft costs, architecture, engineering, permits etc? Like what in total did you add on from the construction costs? Thanks, you're a great help!!

For my detached unit that started in 2019, construction costs were $70k and the soft costs (blueprints, plan checks, build permits) were around $6k. For my attached garage conversion, the construction costs $40k-$50k (still in progres but that was the cost range agreed in contract with goal of $40k) and the soft costs were $6.7k (a little more because it did require structural engineering calculations). I think my costs are in the lower end of the cost spectrum because I’m trading slower construction times for lower price. At least it seems my general contractor is late by 2 to 3 months than originally planned. I’m not an investor, so my son patiently waits for the garage to be completed. Same with the drafters, they took 5 to 7 months to get the plans approved by the city in part due to their slow pace in fixing corrections on the plans.

@@MHam1 thanks a lot, I plan to build in south bay LA and if it's anything like that I'll be very very happy!!!

I used a combination of equity loans and savings.

Thank you!

I’m going to use a dual zone mini split for the garage conversion. It’s one unit outside and two units inside on wall. The detached unit has a single zone mini split and I wish I had put dual zone. Dual zone is twice as expensive compared to single zone. And I don’t remember slope of my roof.

Oh ok, I'm still in the learning process of all the details with ADU's. Look forward to seeing your finished Garage ADU. Thanks again.

No, my GC does not take online referrals.