Three prices for three different buildings is not a comparison. Same drawings first. Then site work and utility connection as lines, not as hope. Those two are the lines the cost page already says homeowners leave out.
Site work + utilitiesas lines, not as allowances you will regretThe cost page on this site already names those two as the usual omissions. Tick whether they are itemized, whether impact fees are in the number, whether allowances have dollar figures, and whether payment follows work.
Tick what is on each packet, or on the one packet you have. Completeness is not an endorsement. A large front-loaded deposit is still a warning on a complete document. Site work and utilities missing from an otherwise pretty number is how two “same size” ADUs stop being comparable. HyreADU does not rank builders.
What is on the document
Tick what you can see. Nothing is emailed.
—Items present
—How to read it
—List length
What this assumed—
Completeness of an ADU proposal, not a price index. HyreADU does not rank builders.
The cheapest bid is usually the one with the least written on it
Three numbers on three sheets of paper are not three prices for the same building unless the three sheets describe the same building.
Most of the time they do not, and the difference between the low number and the others is not a discount.
It is a list of lines the other two priced and this one left off.
Start with what a bid actually is. It is an offer to do a described scope for a stated sum. The sum is the part everyone reads.
The description is the part that decides what you end up paying, because anything the description does not cover arrives later as a change order at a price nobody was competing for.
Competitive tension exists only before you sign. After that, the builder holding the job is the only builder who can finish it, and the price of everything that was not written down is now negotiated in a market of one.
Which is why a short bid is expensive. A two-page proposal with a big number at the bottom and the phrase "site work by others" is not a cheaper building.
It is the same building with the expensive uncertainty moved onto your side of the line.
The bid that looks dearer because it carries a foundation allowance, a trenching line and a named figure for the utility connection may well be the one that costs you less by completion, and it is certainly the one you can audit.
The two lines this keeps happening on. Across this site, the same two items are the ones that break ADU budgets: site work and foundation, and utility connection. They are the two least like the rest of the job.
Everything else roughly scales with floor area — more square feet, more framing, more finishes.
These two scale with facts about your parcel that nobody can see from a drawing: how far the sewer main is, whether a machine can get to the back garden, what is under the topsoil, whether the panel has spare capacity.
A bidder who has not stood on the lot cannot price them, and a bidder who prices them without standing on the lot has guessed.
And this is a legal question, not only a commercial one. In California a home improvement contract has to be in writing once "the aggregate contract price specified in one or more improvement contracts, including all labor, services, and materials to be furnished by the contractor, exceeds five hundred dollars ($500)" (Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159).
Any ADU clears that threshold by three orders of magnitude, so the document in front of you is not a courtesy — it is the instrument the statute expects to exist, and the statute has opinions about what belongs in it.
Those opinions are the best free checklist available to a homeowner, and almost nobody reads them. The sections below quote them.
What we are not. HyreADU does not design, permit or build accessory dwelling units.
It does not appraise, lend, invest, let property or prepare taxes, it does not rank or refer contractors, and it takes no referral fee from anyone who does any of those things.
We hold no dataset of ADU bids, quotes or contracts. Every dollar figure on this site is a named third party’s published figure, arithmetic we performed on one and have labeled as ours, or a number you typed in.
We cannot tell you whether a number is high or low for your city, and we will not pretend otherwise by publishing a national ADU rate for you to check it against.
What we can do is tell you what a complete document contains, so that when you compare, you are comparing.
The lines a bid should carry, and what each absence means
The last column is the one to read. An absent line is not a neutral omission; it is a specific risk that has been silently transferred, and in most cases you can name who it lands on.
Line
What it should say
What its absence means
Scope and drawings
Names the drawing set by title, date and revision, and lists what is included and excluded in words.
You are not comparing bids at all. Two builders reading two different mental buildings will differ by more than any negotiation will recover. This is the one absence that makes every other comparison meaningless.
Site work and foundation
Excavation, spoil removal, access, compaction, the foundation type assumed, and what happens if the soil is not what was assumed.
The largest uncontrolled variable on the job is now yours. "By others" with no number attached is not an exclusion you priced — it is one you inherited.
Utility connection and trenching
Trench length assumed, whether a new sewer lateral or a tie-in is priced, panel upgrade included or excluded, gas run, water meter, and who pays the utility’s own charges.
The line most likely to end a project after money has been spent. Connection and capacity charges are billed by the utility, not the builder, and they sit outside the statutory ADU impact-fee relief entirely.
Permits and fees
Whether the number includes them, and if the owner pays them directly, an itemized figure the owner can verify against the fee schedule.
Two bids where one carries fees and one does not are not comparable at the total, and the difference will read as a price difference to anyone comparing quickly.
Allowances
Every allowance named with a dollar figure and the quantity it covers — tile per square foot, not "tile allowance".
An allowance without a figure is a blank check with your signature on it. An allowance with a figure but no quantity is the same check with a number written in pencil.
Schedule of payments
Progress payments in dollars, each tied to identifiable work. Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159 requires that "each progress payment shall be stated in dollars and cents and specifically reference the amount of work or services to be performed and materials and equipment to be supplied".
Payments tied only to calendar dates pay for time rather than progress, so the risk of a slow job sits with you while the builder’s cash position is unaffected by it.
Change order process
Written, signed before the work starts, describing scope, cost and schedule effect — which is what Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159 already requires.
Verbal change orders. The single most common source of a disputed final invoice, and the hardest to argue about afterwards, because both parties genuinely remember it differently.
Start and completion dates
Actual dates under the statutory headings. The statute also requires the contract to carry the headings "Approximate Start Date" and "Approximate Completion Date", each with a date under it.
No shared expectation about duration, and no reference point if the job stalls. A schedule you never agreed cannot be missed.
License, insurance, workers’ compensation
License number, and certificates naming you, from the insurer rather than from the builder.
An uninsured injury on your property is your problem. A certificate forwarded by the contractor is a claim about insurance; one sent by the carrier is evidence of it.
Lien waivers and preliminary notices
How waivers will be exchanged at each payment, and an expectation that you will receive preliminary notices from subcontractors and suppliers.
You may pay the builder in full and still face a claim from an unpaid subcontractor. The notices are not a threat; their absence is what should worry you.
Statutory quotations are California. Every state writes its own home improvement contract law and some write very little. Confirm the rules that apply where the work will happen. This table is our analysis of what makes a document auditable, not a legal opinion or a contract review — HyreADU does not provide either.
The deposit rule almost nobody knows, and what it tells you about a builder
The deposit rule is the most useful paragraph on the page for a Californian homeowner, and it is one sentence of statute. A builder who asks for thirty per cent up front is not driving a hard bargain. They are proposing something the law does not permit.
The first two bars are the number people assume. The third is the number in the statute. This chart is arithmetic on published figures, not a survey of what builders ask for — we hold no such dataset.California Legislature, Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159.5. Retrieved 2026-09-05.
What the statute says
Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159.5: "the downpayment shall not exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) or 10 percent of the contract amount, whichever amount is less."
Read the "whichever amount is less" carefully, because it is doing all the work. Ten per cent of a $300,000 ADU is $30,000. The statute does not permit $30,000. It permits $1,000, because $1,000 is the lesser of the two.
On any ADU-scale contract the cap is a flat thousand dollars, and the percentage limb only ever binds on jobs under $10,000. That is HyreADU arithmetic on the two published figures, not an additional rule.
And there is a second sentence in the same section: "the contractor shall neither request nor accept payment that exceeds the value of the work performed or material delivered." Payment may not run ahead of value delivered. Taken together, the two sentences say that the money follows the work, not the other way around.
Why the rule exists, and what it is really testing
The failure it was written against is a builder funding one job from the deposit on the next. That works until it does not, and when it stops working, the homeowner at the end of the chain has paid for a building that was never started. Capping the deposit removes the mechanism.
Which makes the request a diagnostic. A builder who asks for a large deposit is telling you something about their working capital, whether or not they mean to. A well-capitalised firm can carry the first phase and bill for it.
A firm that cannot is asking you to be its lender, at no interest, unsecured, in a transaction where you are also the customer and have no way to assess the credit.
The honest counter-argument, stated fairly. There are legitimate up-front costs: a deposit on a modular unit, a long-lead order, an engineered truss package. Those are real, and a builder who explains one is not being evasive.
The distinction is whether the money is going to a named third party for a named item you can verify, or into general working capital. Ask which. The answer is usually immediate and usually clear.
What to do when it happens
Do not treat it as a deal-breaker in the first sentence. Treat it as a question. "My understanding is the deposit is capped at a thousand dollars — can we structure the first progress payment against mobilisation instead?" is a reasonable, workable request, and a competent builder will have a structure ready.
If the answer is that the rule does not apply to them, ask on what basis, in writing. There are contract forms outside the home improvement chapter, and the answer may be legitimate. What matters is that it is stated rather than waved away.
And if you are outside California, look for your own state’s equivalent before assuming there is none. Several states cap deposits; several do not. The absence of a cap does not make a large deposit wise — it only makes it lawful.
You can pay in full and still owe the money
Paying in full and still owing the money is the part of construction contracting that surprises homeowners most, and it is not obscure. It is the ordinary operation of mechanics lien law, and the paperwork that protects you arrives looking like a threat.
The mechanism. The people who actually did the work — the concrete sub, the electrician, the lumber yard — have a claim against the improved property, not only against the contractor who hired them.
If your builder takes your money and does not pay them, their claim does not evaporate because you paid. It attaches to your house. You can, in the plainest terms, pay for the job twice.
What the statute requires first. Civ. Code § 8200 provides: "Before recording a lien claim, giving a stop payment notice, or asserting a claim against a payment bond, a claimant shall give preliminary notice to the following persons: (1) The owner or reputed owner. (2) The direct contractor or reputed direct contractor to which the claimant provides work, either directly or through one or more subcontractors. (3) The construction lender or reputed construction lender, if any." So before any of that can happen, the claimant has to have told you they were there.
And when. Civ. Code § 8204: "A preliminary notice shall be given not later than 20 days after the claimant has first furnished work on the work of improvement." Twenty days from first furnishing work.
A claimant who gives the notice late is not shut out: under § 8204 it may then claim only for work performed within the 20 days before service, and thereafter. That is our reading of the retrieved section.
Now the counter-intuitive part. When a preliminary notice arrives in the post — usually on a form covered in warnings about losing your home — the instinctive reaction is alarm, and the second reaction is to ring the builder and ask what is going wrong.
Nothing is going wrong. A preliminary notice is what a supplier sends as a matter of routine on every job, to preserve a right they hope never to use.
It is evidence that the supply chain is being run by people who know the rules.
The thing to worry about is the opposite. If you are six weeks into a build and no notices have arrived from anyone, that is worth a question.
It may mean the builder is self-performing and buying on their own account, which is fine.
It may mean the subcontractors are not following the statute, which tells you something about how the job is being run.
Either way, the notices are a free window into who is on your project, and most homeowners file them unread.
Use them as a register. Keep every notice. It becomes the list of parties from whom you want unconditional lien waivers as each payment goes out. Matching waivers to notices is the single most effective thing a homeowner can do to avoid paying twice, and it costs nothing but a folder.
The scope of what we are telling you. These are California sections, retrieved from the Legislature’s own site on 2026-09-05.
Every state has its own lien statute with its own deadlines and its own notice forms, and the deadlines are short everywhere.
HyreADU does not give legal advice, does not prepare or review waivers, and has no interest in any outcome here.
Where real money is at stake, this is a question for a construction lawyer in your state, and it is a cheap question relative to the exposure.
What to ask each bidder, in the order that saves the most money
The first three cost nothing and eliminate most of the variance. The last four are the ones people are embarrassed to ask, which is exactly why they are worth asking.
Are you bidding the same drawings, by title and revision date?
Say the revision date out loud to each bidder. If one is pricing an earlier set, every comparison you make afterwards is noise. This is the cheapest question on the list and the one that most often explains a suspiciously low number.
Have you stood on the lot, and what did you conclude about access?
Site work cannot be priced from a drawing. Ask what equipment they assumed could reach the pad, and what they will do if it cannot. A builder who says "we’ll have to hand-dig the last thirty feet and I have allowed for it" has told you more than a number ever will.
What have you assumed about the utility connection, and who pays the utility’s own charges?
Trench length, sewer tie-in versus new lateral, panel capacity, gas run, water meter. Then separately: the connection or capacity charge the utility itself bills, which is not the builder’s money and is often not in the bid at all.
What is your deposit, and how are progress payments tied to work?
The statutory answer in California is $1,000 and payments that do not run ahead of value delivered. Ask for the schedule in dollars against identifiable milestones, which is what Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159 requires anyway.
Show me your change order form.
Not a description of the process — the actual form. A builder with a real one hands it over in seconds. It should have space for scope, cost and schedule effect, and a signature line, because that is what the statute describes.
Which parts will you subcontract, and to whom?
You are buying a general contractor’s judgment about trades as much as their own labor. Named subs you can look up are a stronger signal than any brochure. It also tells you whose preliminary notices to expect.
Have you permitted an ADU in this jurisdiction, and what did the plan check ask for?
The answer to the second half is the tell. Someone who has been through it will name the specific correction their last set drew and how long it took. Someone who has not will speak in generalities about the city being difficult.
Levelling three bids: what to add, what to strip out
Levelling is the unglamorous arithmetic of making three documents describe the same transaction before you compare their totals. Almost nobody does it, and it routinely changes which bid is lowest.
Add to a bid before comparing
Permits and fees, if the bid excludes them. Use the city’s published schedule, not an estimate, and add the same figure to every bid that excludes them.
The utility’s own connection or capacity charge, which is almost never in a builder’s number and is not an impact fee. Get it from the two utilities in writing.
Any scope carried by an allowance that is visibly too small. If one bid allows $4,000 for finishes on a whole unit and another allows $14,000, the difference is not workmanship. It is a decision about what you will actually buy, deferred.
Work explicitly excluded as "by owner". Someone will do it and it will cost something. Price it, even roughly, and add it — an owner-performed line is a labor commitment, not a saving, until you have looked at your own calendar.
Design and engineering, if a bid assumes a completed set you do not have. A design-build bid and a build-only bid are not comparable at the total until the drawings are in both.
Strip out, or hold aside
Optional scope one bidder volunteered. A covered porch nobody else drew is not a price difference; it is a different building. Take it out, then decide separately whether you want it.
Contingency the builder carries inside the number, if you can see it. Not to remove the money — to see where it sits. A contingency inside the contract sum belongs to the builder; one you hold belongs to you, and only one of those is refundable.
Finance costs and interest. They are real and they are not the builder’s. Keeping them out of the comparison keeps you comparing construction.
Landscaping and site restoration beyond the drawings, which varies enormously between bids and is easy to buy later.
Anything you cannot describe in a sentence. If you cannot say what a line buys, do not level it — ask about it. An unexplained line item is a question, not a number.
This is our method for making documents comparable, not a scoring system with a right answer. The point of levelling is not to produce a winner, it is to make the remaining differences ones you can name.
The context a bid sits inside
Four published figures from elsewhere on this site. None of them is a price, and none tells you whether your bid is fair. They are here because each one changes how you should read a number on a page.
Why the second figure belongs on a bid page. These are reported APR rows, not a physical census of construction.
An unmatched permit may be a unit still under construction, an abandoned project, a unit completed without a reported certificate, or a project whose identifier changed between the permit row and the completion row.
The direction is robust; the exact rate is a reporting artefact as much as a construction one. A permit is not a building.
Some meaningful share of people who got as far as a permit did not get as far as a finished unit, and the most common reasons given anywhere are money and a utility connection rather than planning refusal.
That is the failure this page is trying to help you avoid, and it happens after approval, at exactly the moment the bids arrive.
Why the third figure belongs here. These are calendar days from the published application-side date to issuance, on permits that issued.
The statutory 60 days runs from a COMPLETED application, and none of the three extracts marks the completeness determination.
The gap between the two therefore includes every day an applicant spent curing an incomplete set, paying fees, answering plan-check comments, or asking for delay.
A median above 60 days is not, by itself, a finding that a city missed the shot clock.
A builder who prices a fixed mobilisation date against a permit that has not issued is pricing something neither of you controls.
Ask what happens to the price and the schedule if issuance slips by a quarter, and get the answer before you sign rather than after.
$150,000Median reported spend among surveyed California ADU owners — an owner survey, several years old, not a current quoteChapple, Ganetsos and Lopez, Implementing the Backyard Revolution: Perspectives of California’s ADU Owners, UC Berkeley Center for Community Innovation, 22 April 2021
41%Share of ADU permits in the reported cohort with no matched completion row. Some are still building; some stoppedCalifornia Department of Housing and Community Development, Housing Element Annual Progress Report, Table A2. Retrieved 2026-09-05.
162 daysMedian application-to-issuance duration on issued permits in one large California city — HyreADU calculation on published open dataLADBS Building and Safety — Building Permits Issued from 2020 to Present (N). Retrieved 2026-09-05.
$1,000Statutory maximum downpayment on a California home improvement contract of any ADU-scale sizeCalifornia Legislature, Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159.5. Retrieved 2026-09-05.
The order to do this in
The sequence matters more than the diligence. Doing step four before step two is how people end up with three prices for three buildings and a strong feeling that one of them is cheating.
1
Fix the drawings before you ask anyone for a number
A permit-ready or near-permit-ready set, with a revision date. If you are not there yet, ask for design-build proposals and compare those on process and fee, not on a construction total that cannot exist yet.
2
Write your own scope list first
One page: what is in, what is out, what you will do yourself. Send the same page to every bidder. This single document does more to make bids comparable than anything a builder will volunteer.
3
Get the two utility figures yourself, in writing
Water and sewer, and electricity if a panel upgrade is in question. These are the utility’s own charges, not the builder’s, and having them in hand stops a bid difference from being confused for a fee difference.
4
Walk the lot with each bidder, separately
Not a group walk. Separately, so each one reaches their own conclusion about access and you hear three independent readings of the same ground. Where they disagree is where the risk is.
5
Level the bids on paper before you form an opinion
Add and strip as in the section above, in a single sheet with a row per line item. Do it before you decide who you like, because after that the arithmetic becomes an argument for a conclusion you have already reached.
6
Ask the questions, and write down the answers
The checklist above. Written answers, or your own notes emailed back to the builder for confirmation. "As we discussed, you have allowed for X" is a cheap and remarkably effective document.
7
Read the contract as a contract, not as a formality
Deposit, progress payments, change orders, dates, license, insurance, waivers. If the sum is large relative to your finances, this is the point at which an hour of a construction lawyer’s time is the cheapest hour in the project.
The words on the documents, in plain terms
Bid, quote, estimate, proposal
Used loosely and interchangeably in conversation, and they are not the same. An estimate is an opinion about likely cost. A bid or a firm quote is an offer capable of acceptance. Ask which one you are holding, because the word on the letterhead is often not the word the sender means.
Allowance
A placeholder sum for a scope not yet chosen — tile, fixtures, appliances. Useful when it names a dollar figure and a quantity. Dangerous when it names neither, because the reconciliation at the end is a bill, not a negotiation.
Change order
A written, signed variation to the contract. Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159 describes it as prepared in writing and signed before the covered work begins, stating scope, cost and effect on the payment schedule.
Progress payment
A payment tied to work completed. The statute expects each one to be "each progress payment shall be stated in dollars and cents and specifically reference the amount of work or services to be performed and materials and equipment to be supplied".
Downpayment
Money paid before work begins. In California, capped by Bus. & Prof. Code § 7159.5 at "the downpayment shall not exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) or 10 percent of the contract amount, whichever amount is less".
Preliminary notice
A notice a subcontractor or supplier serves to preserve later lien rights. Under Civ. Code § 8204, "A preliminary notice shall be given not later than 20 days after the claimant has first furnished work on the work of improvement." Its arrival is normal; its absence across a whole job is the thing to ask about.
Lien waiver
A document by which someone with lien rights gives them up, usually in exchange for payment. Conditional waivers take effect when the payment clears; unconditional ones take effect immediately. Sign and collect the right one at the right moment.
Retention
A percentage held back from each payment until completion. Common in commercial work, less so on residential jobs, and worth asking about — it is one of the few levers that keeps the last ten per cent of a job moving.
Levelling
Adjusting bids so they describe the same transaction before you compare totals. Our term for the arithmetic in the section above; the industry calls it the same thing but rarely explains it to homeowners.
Declared permit valuation
Declared permit valuation is what an applicant writes on a form so a city can compute a fee. It is not a construction cost, it is not a bid, and it is not what the job was sold for. Where a fee scales with the number written down, the number written down has an obvious direction of error.
What this worksheet cannot do
Six real blind spots, not a disclaimer. Each one is a thing a homeowner might reasonably expect this page to do, and it does not.
It cannot tell you whether a price is fair. We hold no dataset of ADU bids, quotes or contracts, in your city or anywhere else. There is no number on this site you can hold a bid against and conclude anything.
A worksheet that counts what is present on a document is not a valuation, and anyone who offers you a national ADU price to check your bid against is selling you a comfort, not a measurement.
It cannot assess a builder. Completeness of paperwork and quality of construction are different variables, and they are not perfectly correlated. There are meticulous builders with thin proposals and disciplined administrators who build badly.
The document test raises the floor; it does not identify the ceiling. References you actually telephone, and finished units you actually walk through, do work this page cannot.
It cannot check a license, an insurance certificate or a disciplinary record. Those live with your state licensing board and the insurer, and both are free to check. We do not verify contractors, rank them, or refer them, and we take no fee from anyone who does.
It cannot read your bid. Nothing you type here leaves your browser, and no document is uploaded, stored or reviewed. That is a deliberate design choice and it has a cost: the tool cannot notice the specific weasel clause in your specific document. Only a person reading it can.
It cannot give legal advice, and the statutes quoted are Californian. Home improvement contract rules, deposit caps and lien deadlines are state law and they differ substantially. If you are building anywhere else, the shape of the questions transfers and the citations do not.
It cannot price the two lines that matter most. Site work and utility connection depend on facts about your parcel that no general tool can know — soil, access, distance to the main, spare panel capacity, what a particular utility charges.
This page can tell you to demand them as itemized lines. It cannot tell you what the lines should say.
When the right answer is to take no bid at all
Taking no bid at all is a conclusion this tool is allowed to reach, and it is worth saying plainly because most sources in this space are structurally unable to say it.
Name the conflict first. Almost every ADU bid comparison guide you will find is published by someone who is paid when a project proceeds — a builder, a design-build firm, a lender, a marketplace taking a referral fee on the introduction.
None of them is necessarily dishonest. All of them are structurally incapable of concluding "do not build this". HyreADU does not design, permit or build accessory dwelling units.
It does not appraise, lend, invest, let property or prepare taxes, it does not rank or refer contractors, and it takes no referral fee from anyone who does any of those things.
That is what allows these tools to conclude that the numbers do not work, that the answer is to keep the garage, or that the honest next step is a question at the planning counter rather than a deposit.
Three situations where stopping is the correct answer. First: every bid comes back materially above what you can finance, and the gap is being closed by optimism about rent rather than by a change in scope.
Second: the utility connection figure arrives and it is a five-figure number nobody had budgeted — this is the classic project-killer, and it kills projects after approval, not before.
Third: no bidder will itemize site work, which usually means none of them is confident about what is under your garden.
Stopping is not the same as abandoning. Reducing scope, staging the work, waiting for a pre-approved plan program in your city, or building a smaller unit under the fee threshold are all live options that are invisible while you are comparing three totals.
So is doing nothing for two years, which is a real choice with a real return: you keep the money and the optionality.
And the arithmetic to run before you decide. California’s impact fee relief runs to 750 square feet of interior livable space.
A unit at 749 square feet of interior livable space and a unit at 751 can differ by five figures of park, traffic and school charges before anyone lifts a hammer.
If your bids are for a unit just over that line, the cheapest change available to you may not be a change of builder at all. It may be a change of twenty square feet.
That is a design decision with a price on it, and it is one no bidder is likely to raise with you unaided.
How this calculator works
Six binary ticks. The result is how many are present, plus a sentence that is harsher when the count is zero. There is no score that becomes a recommendation. A 6 of 6 packet can still be expensive, slow or wrong for the lot.
The six are not generic contractor hygiene. They are the ADU-specific version: drawings first (form and size are the whole project), then the two lines the cost page says people omit (site, utilities), then fees that attach to a new dwelling, then allowances, then how money moves.
What each input means
Inputs on this tool, in the order they appear on the form.
Input
What it is actually asking
Same drawings
Identical scope. A conversion bid next to a detached bid is two projects.
Site work itemized
Access, pad, foundation, drainage, demo. “By others” without a number is a hole.
Utilities itemized
Trenching, taps, meters, capacity charges, septic. The other hole.
Fees
Permit, impact, school, park, utility connection. In the bid or listed as yours with a figure from the city’s schedule.
Allowances
Named, with dollars. “Owner to select fixtures” without a number will be restated later at a higher number.
Draws
Progress or inspection-based payment. A large deposit before a permit is a different conversation.
Worked examples
Including one where the naive answer misleads, which is the example most calculators leave out.
Nothing ticked
Result: none of the listed items were ticked, plus the reminder that three prices for three buildings is not a comparison. That is the honest starting point for a verbal number someone quoted at a barbecue.
Pretty number, no utilities
Drawings yes, allowances yes, draws yes, site and utilities no. 4 of 6. The missing lines are the ones that most often move an ADU budget after it is set. Ask for them as lines before you compare the headlines.
The one where the factory quote misleads
A modular company’s number looks complete because it is itemized down to the windows. Crane, foundation, trench and permit sit with “the site contractor,” who has not bid.
Ticking drawings and allowances on the factory packet and calling it a bid is the naive answer. Until site and utilities have a name and a number, the project is not priced.
What changes the result
Each tick is independent. There is no weighting. Site work and utilities are listed second and third because they are the ADU-specific failures, not because they add extra points.
A complete packet still needs to be laid next to the cost calculator. Completeness is not cheapness.
Local considerations
Who may pull a permit, what fees attach to a new dwelling, and whether a licensed contractor is required are local. This worksheet does not look them up. Ask the building department who they will accept as the applicant, and put that name on the proposal.
When not to use this
Do not use a high tick count as a reason to skip references, insurance certificates or a license check. Do not use this as a bid-levelling spreadsheet for dollar amounts; it does not add prices.
HyreADU does not rank, endorse or warrant builders.
Related on this site
Choosing an ADU builderExperience in this form, in this city, plus insurance and a change-order process.
Cost structureThe lines this worksheet insists on seeing.
Same drawings, same scope, then contract type, exclusions, allowances, schedule and payment. Price last. If one packet is a cottage and the other is a conversion, you are not comparing bids. You are comparing projects.
What if one bid is much cheaper?
Read the exclusions. The missing line is usually site work, utility connection, impact fees, or an allowance that will not buy the kitchen you pointed at.
What is an allowance?
A placeholder dollar figure for something not yet specified (fixtures, finishes, appliances). An allowance is not a price. If it is low, the bid looks cheap and the change order is already written.
Should the builder pull the permit?
Whoever pulls it should be named, and the fees should be in the number or listed as yours. “Permit by owner” without a fee schedule is how a cheap bid stays cheap until the counter.
What is a draw schedule?
Payment against completed work, often aligned with a construction lender’s inspections. Payment tied to calendar dates, or a large deposit before anything is in the ground, is a different risk. FTC’s hiring-a-contractor guidance is the consumer version of that warning.
Do I need ADU-specific experience?
Yes, in the jurisdiction. House-building experience is not the same as getting an ADU through your city. The choose-a-builder section on the homepage lists what to ask. This worksheet only checks whether the packet is complete enough to compare.
What about prefab bids?
The factory invoice is one packet. The site, foundation, crane, utilities and permit are another, sometimes from someone else. Compare the whole project, or you will compare a module to a building.
Is lead-safe certification relevant?
If the work disturbs paint in a pre-1978 house (attached ADUs, some conversions), EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule generally applies. Ask. The remodel site’s quote worksheet includes that tick; on a detached new building in the yard it often does not.
Does a complete packet mean a fair price?
No. Completeness is the start of a comparison. Lay the dollars next to the cost calculator’s lines.
Does HyreADU rank builders?
No. No builder is rated or endorsed on this site. Matching is still being built.
Sources and methodology
Figures dated 26 August 2026. Last reviewed .
Hiring a contractor (Federal Trade Commission, retrieved 2026-08-26. Get written estimates, understand payment schedules, be cautious of large advance deposits.)
Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program (US EPA, retrieved 2026-08-26. Ask on pre-1978 attached work and conversions that disturb paint. Not always an ADU issue on a new detached building.)
Home improvement contract requirements (California Legislature, Bus. & Prof. Code section 7159, retrieved 2026-09-05. Written-contract threshold, change orders in writing before the work, progress payments stated in dollars against identified work, and the start and completion date headings.)
Downpayment limit on a home improvement contract (California Legislature, Bus. & Prof. Code section 7159.5, retrieved 2026-09-05. Downpayment capped at the lesser of one thousand dollars or 10 per cent, and payment may not exceed the value of work performed or material delivered.)
Preliminary notice and its timing (California Legislature, Civ. Code sections 8200 and 8204, retrieved 2026-09-05. Who must be given preliminary notice before a lien claim, and the 20-day rule from first furnishing work.)
Related
ADU cost calculatorA neighborhood for the number, after the packet is complete.
Timeline plannerA schedule with phases belongs in the packet too.