Who you need, and when

The roles

ADU builder or general contractor

Builds the unit and normally pulls the permit. The role you will spend the most with and the one where jurisdiction-specific experience matters most. A builder who has taken ADUs through your city’s plan check before knows things that are not written down anywhere.

Architect or designer

Produces the drawings the permit is issued against and the bids are priced from. Getting every bid on one set of drawings is the single most effective cost control available to you, and it requires having drawings first.

Structural engineer

Needed where loads change — an above-garage unit, a hillside, an unusual foundation, or a conversion that removes structure. Not needed on every project.

Civil engineer or surveyor

Where drainage, grading, an accurate property line or a site plan to scale is required. Setback disputes are resolved with a survey, not an opinion.

Permit expediter or consultant

Manages the submission and the corrections cycle. Worth considering where a jurisdiction is slow or the project is unusual — but read our permits hub first, because California’s ministerial 60-day clock already limits how long an agency may take on a complete application.

Specialist trades

Electrical service upgrades, sewer or septic work, and utility connections are frequently separate contracts, and they are also where schedules slip. Establish early who is responsible for each.

What we will not give you

A ranked list of named companies. We do not publish "best ADU builder in [city]" pages, because we cannot support the claim with evidence and because we expect to be paid by professionals for introductions — which would make any ranking we produced a conflict of interest.

What we publish instead is the public record: who is building California’s ADUs, who is named on the permits, the enforcement record, and how long builders last. That is evidence you can check rather than an opinion you have to trust.

Before you sign anything

1. Verify the license on the state board’s own site — status, classification, expiry, exact entity name.
2. Get a certificate of insurance issued to you.
3. Call ADU references in your jurisdiction.
4. Compare bids on identical drawings with the bid comparison worksheet.
5. Read the change-order and payment-schedule clauses before work starts.

How we intend to vet covers the standard we hold ourselves to, and the FAQ answers the questions homeowners ask most often at this stage.

Where HyreADU fits

Honestly: not yet as an introducer. Our professional matching is still being built, so we are not placing anyone in front of you today.

What we can do now is help you work out which of the roles above you actually need, in what order, and what a thorough proposal should contain. Tell us about your project and we will follow up about exactly that — and tell you when matching opens in your area.