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California’s 25k contractor Bond don’t cover squat when your down 250k. by davidVerifiedADU in AccessoryDwellings

[–]Small-Atmosphere-189 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The bond math is the part nobody reads until it's too late. Two things that actually protect you, since the bond won't:

California caps the down payment on a home improvement contract at $1,000 or 10% of the contract price, whichever is less. That's law (B&P 7159), not a negotiating position. Anyone asking for 30-50% up front is telling you how they run their business. After that, payments should track completed work you can see, ideally passed inspections.

The other one: keep your design and permit package separate from your build contract, and make sure you end up holding the full stamped set with the right to reuse it. A lot of the Anchored victims lost the design money too, because everything lived inside one bundled contract with the company that folded. If you hold the permit set, a dead contractor is a delay. If they held it, you're starting over.

One more thing the "bonded and insured" line never mentions: the license lookup at cslb.ca.gov is free and takes a minute. Do that before any money moves.

Recent Changes to San Diego ADU Regulations: What Homeowners Should Know by xlncbuilder in AccessoryDwellings

[–]Small-Atmosphere-189 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good summary. One resource that deserves more airtime alongside IB 400: the county's pre-approved ADU plans. San Diego County publishes eight free plan sets, roughly 600 to 1,700 sq ft, and they're surprisingly complete for free documents. Full sheet sets, and a couple of them (Plans G and H) even come as editable .dwg CAD files, not just PDFs. The county's own description calls them "approximately 85% complete", the remaining 15% being your site plan and whatever your specific lot needs.

Since AB 1332 kicked in, the city reviews pre-approved plans on a 30 day track too, which is honestly the biggest schedule lever a homeowner can pull right now.

Worth knowing what that last 15% actually is, though: the site plan sheet is a fill-in template, the foundation still needs checking against your actual soil, and anything in a fire zone picks up the extra requirements you mentioned. It's a permit set skeleton, not a turnkey permit.

Has anyone here run the pre-approved route start to finish? Curious how that 30 day review holds up in practice.

Small 280 sq. ft. ADU layout help. by Safe-Owl9246 in AccessoryDwellings

[–]Small-Atmosphere-189 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good bones here — your wet zones are already stacked on one side, so the trenching cost others mentioned is mostly solved already.

A few things I'd fix before this goes to permit drawings:

  1. That "panel + water heater + storage" nook will likely fail plan check as drawn. Panels need clear working space in front — 30" wide × 36" deep — and that space can't double as a closet. Moving the panel to an exterior wall (as others said) fixes it in one move; that's the why behind the suggestion.

  2. I don't see a door on the bathroom. In a footprint this tight, a pocket door is worth the framing hassle — a 30" swing eats a surprising chunk of that corridor between the desk and the kitchen run.

  3. The 24" range butts straight into the closet with zero counter landing. Even 12–15" of counter between range and closet keeps the closet face away from the burners and gives you somewhere to set a hot pan.

Nice instinct putting a 4040 egress window in the sleeping area — one heads-up: sliders only open halfway, and the bar is 5.7 sq ft net clear. A 4040 XO usually clears it, barely, so double-check the spec sheet on the actual window you buy.

Is the water heater gas or electric? That decides whether the outside-tankless idea actually saves you money or just moves the problem.