ADU Construction in Encino
Encino ADUs, with a plain answer on whether to bolt down the main house while the backyard unit is designed and built. Aspenwell Construction.
"Should the house get bolted down while the unit goes up?" For an Encino lot the short answer is that a detached ADU does not depend on it, because the new building stands on its own footings. Pairing the two can still make sense. The engineer is already drawing, a crew is already on site, and a retrofit of the old house can share the same design visit and permit review.
What a retrofit of the main house adds
On a raised house, the work is anchor bolts through the sill into the old foundation and plywood on the cripple walls, the short framed walls that lift the floor off the foundation. A house on a slab may need only bolts or straps at certain walls. We crawl under, measure cripple wall heights and count existing bolts before saying which applies. The retrofit gets its own sheet and its own inspection, so it can be set aside later if the budget for the unit needs room.
When the unit joins the house
An attached unit changes the question. LADBS plan check wants to know how the new walls tie into the old ones and whether the old framing can carry what that connection asks of it. Sometimes the engineer separates the two with a gap so each moves on its own in a quake. Other times the old wall gets new plywood, new hold-downs and a deeper footing where it meets the addition. We open that wall at a test spot before the set is drawn, so the design starts from what is really there.
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ADU Construction in Encino: questions
Encino backyard units on firm soil tend to sit on a slab whose edges are dug deeper to act as footings, with steel tied through them. The engineer sizes those edges from the shear walls above. Where a soils report finds expansive clay, the footings may go down further or the slab may get more reinforcing.
Sometimes. We look for a continuous footing under each wall that will brace the new room. If it is there and solid, new anchors and hold-downs may be enough. If the slab simply ends at a thin curb, new footing sections go in along those walls before framing starts.
It is drawn for an Encino ADU of one story with no more than 500 square feet inside, as a backyard unit, an attached unit or a garage conversion. A retrofit sheet for the main house can be prepared alongside it. Bigger or two-level units are looked at lot by lot.
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Describe the house and what it needs. We look at the structure first and send the quote in writing.