A garage conversion is the least expensive path to a legal second dwelling on most Sunnyvale properties. The slab, walls, and roof exist, and they already sit within the setbacks, which removes the two biggest cost centers of new construction.
What determines your actual budget is the condition of that structure, and on homes built in the fifties and sixties the range is wide.
Sunnyvale has a lot of mid-century homes, and a number of them came with carports rather than enclosed garages. A carport conversion is not the same project. There are no walls to insulate because there are no walls, so you are effectively building a small structure under an existing roof, and often the roof itself needs work to carry a conditioned space beneath it.
It can still be the right move, since the roof and slab give you a head start. But anyone quoting a carport conversion at garage conversion prices has not looked closely.
If the property is an Eichler or another mid-century home with radiant heating cast into the slab, cutting that slab for plumbing is not a routine step. The tubing has to be located before any saw touches concrete, because a cut line means an expensive repair and a heating system out of service.
We treat locating that tubing as its own task with its own time on the schedule. It is one of the clearest places where knowing the local housing stock saves a homeowner money.
Cities once required replacement parking for any spaces a conversion removed, which stopped most of these projects. State law eliminated that requirement in the majority of situations, and it is the single biggest reason garage ADUs pencil today. Our overview of navigating ADU law covers the relevant changes.
A conversion is a permitted project inspected as a dwelling. Sunnyvale reviews and inspects through its own city process, and unpermitted conversions cause real problems at sale or refinance. We handle drawings, submittal, plan check corrections, and inspections.
We run these design build, which matters on conversions more than on new work because so much depends on what appears when the walls open. Our design build services page explains how that works, and our ADU construction page covers the build itself.
We are a licensed general contracting company based in San Jose, owner operated by Becir Molabecirovic, serving Sunnyvale and the surrounding cities.
An honest price requires inspecting what is already there, including the slab. Get in touch with our team and we will walk your Sunnyvale garage or carport and tell you what it needs.
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