A search for ADU builders near me from a house in Woodland Hills returns a long list, and distance is the easiest thing on it to check. The harder part is finding out which builder has read your lot before a contract reaches your table. Cedarline Design Build works from Woodland Hills, draws and builds all four ADU types, and writes its price after walking the parcel. The questions below help you hold one builder's quote against another's.
Ready to compare? Send the address, the unit you are leaning toward and any bid you already hold, and we will walk the lot and write our ADU price for you.
Why distance matters on a second unit
An ADU brings its builder back to the property again and again. Trenches stay open until the underground work passes. Footings, framing, rough work and the final each get their own city sign-off, and our team attends every one of them. A builder based in the San Fernando Valley can reach a Woodland Hills lot for a morning inspection without building a travel day into the schedule, and can look at a surprise in the slab the day it turns up.
Our base also sits close to Canoga Park, West Hills, Tarzana and Winnetka, with Calabasas and Hidden Hills nearby. Our Woodland Hills page has notes for owners here. Distance still only gets a builder to your gate. What counts after that is what the builder writes down once there, so ask every candidate the same things and ask for the answers on paper.
What moves a builder's number on your lot
Two builders can quote the same floor plan far apart, and most of the gap traces back to these lines. Compare them one at a time.
- Unit type. A detached unit starts from bare ground. A garage conversion reuses a shell if the slab and framing pass. An attached unit has to meet your wall and roof. A JADU stays inside the house. Ask which types were priced for your lot.
- Foundation. Soil and grade decide this line. If the rear yard slopes, the footings may go deeper, so a flat allowance deserves a follow-up question.
- Trench and panel. Count the feet from the unit back to the sewer lateral, and check whether the main panel can carry a new kitchen and water heater. Each of these belongs on a line of its own.
- Getting materials in. A narrow gate slows every delivery and adds labor across several trades.
- Allowances. Flooring, cabinets and fixtures are often written as placeholder amounts. A low allowance can make a bid look cheaper until you pick real products.
- Drawings. Our plans package starts at $8,350 for a qualifying one-story ADU up to 500 sq ft, and it pays for drawings only, with construction priced separately. City fees get their own line too.
Read every bid for what it leaves out. Two totals mean little until both cover the same work.
Seven questions for any builder on your list
Put these to each company, us included, and keep the answers with the bids.
- Who walked my lot, and will that person stay on the job after the contract?
- Which of the four ADU types did you price, and why did you drop the others?
- Which lines are allowances, and what product does each one assume?
- Which lines are unknown today, and what will you do to check them?
- What sits outside this contract, in writing?
- Whose name goes on the response when plan check sends corrections?
- How is a change priced, and who signs it before the work starts?
Then run each company through the Contractors State License Board's online license check. You can search by license number, business name or the contractor's own name, and it shows the status of the license. Our earlier note on picking an ADU builder goes further on routes and contract terms.
A builder may fit one kind of project better than another. Owners who only need more room for the household can read our room additions page, which weighs an addition against an attached unit. If a unit someone else started has stalled, we will still look at it and price what is left, though most callers want a full new unit taken from footing to final.
Our lot walk and the quote behind it
Before we arrive, we pull the parcel records. On site we measure the setbacks, note any easements, open the garage and find where sewer, water and power leave the house. You see all of that again in the comparison sheet: one page with a column for each ADU construction type, including the ones your lot rules out and the reason.
Pick a type and it goes to drawings. The written quote breaks the work into site work and foundation, utility connections, the shell, interior finishes, and plan check and permit fees. A line that rests on something hidden, such as a buried sewer pipe, is marked with how we plan to check it. The construction contract then follows the drawings you approve.
From there one team files the set, answers the city and builds the unit through the final inspection.
Bring these when you compare builders
The more you hand us, the fewer lines stay marked as unknown.
- Any bid you already have, so we can compare scope with you line by line.
- A survey, a site plan or old permits for the house and garage.
- Photos of the yard, the side access and the electrical panel with its cover on.
- A rough size and room count.
- Whether family or a tenant will live there, since that affects the meter and the entry path.
Book the walk on your parcel
Call us or send the form with your address and the bids you are weighing. We set a time to walk the lot, then send a written price you can lay beside the others.