ADU Construction in San Fernando
San Fernando garage conversions and backyard units that start with the old garage's bolts, slab edge and missing footings. Aspenwell Construction.
Bolt spacing along the bottom plate of the existing garage is the first measurement we take on a San Fernando lot. A tape run from nut to nut tells us whether the walls were ever tied to their slab, and how tightly. Where the garage may become the unit, those walls will be asked to brace a living space, so what holds them down today sets how much new concrete and hardware the conversion needs.
What the bolts tell us
No bolts at all means the walls rest on the slab by weight alone. Bolts spaced far apart, missing their washers or rusted through at the nut point to an anchorage that cannot hold a braced wall. In some cases new anchors can be drilled and set in epoxy along a sound footing. Where the concrete under the wall is too thin to grip them, a new footing section is the honest fix. Either way, the engineer reads our notes and photos before deciding which walls carry the bracing.
Turning the shell into a room
Across the wide door opening there is often no footing at all, just the slab edge where the car rolled in. When that opening becomes a wall with a window or an entry door, it needs concrete under it like any other wall. Inside, the floor may sit lower than the yard, so we check how water would reach it and raise the floor or add a curb if needed. San Fernando's city building department reviews the conversion, and its inspector sees the new footing and the bracing before walls close.
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ADU Construction in San Fernando: questions
A new backyard unit gets an engineered base, most often a reinforced slab whose edges are dug deeper to work as footings. A converted garage keeps its slab where the slab is sound, with new footing added under the braced walls and the old door opening. The soils and the plans settle the sizes.
Rarely in full. Even a garage with decent perimeter concrete usually lacks a footing across the car opening, and the walls chosen for bracing may need more depth than they have. Where the existing footing passes the engineer's check, it stays, and new anchors are drilled into it.
Up to 500 square feet on a single level, as a new backyard building, an add-on to the house, or the garage made over. A San Fernando conversion is worked out mostly on the floor plan, where the old car opening, the bathroom and the bracing walls have to share one shell.
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Describe the house and what it needs. We look at the structure first and send the quote in writing.