One shared wall,
a whole second home in Placerville.

The wall you share stops being an ordinary interior partition the second two separate dwellings sit on either side of it. Code wants a rated separation then — usually a one-hour fire assembly running floor to roof deck, the correct gypsum layers, fireblocking, and ideally a sound-rated cavity so your tenant isn't living inside your TV. People never expect this part. On the older homes near Main Street we've opened walls expecting plywood and found board sheathing, no fireblocking, and wiring cooked through a hundred Sierra summers. That existing wall almost always needs upgrading to carry the rating. We draw the assembly on the plans, build it to the listed spec, and the inspector signs off on something real — not a guess.

Here's a range, then the honesty. A 472 sq ft one-bed attached unit with sensible mid-grade finishes generally lands around $223K to $287K all-in in Placerville. Go bigger — a 738 sq ft two-bed with its own utilities throughout — and you're closer to $311K to $399K. Attached usually pencils a touch under detached per square foot, because you borrow a wall and tap utilities already on that side of the house. Three Placerville things move the number. The ground is granite and decomposed granite, so footings and trenches hit rock that needs breaking. Hillside lots add retaining walls and stepped foundations. And the fire-zone construction — ember-resistant vents, fire-rated siding and eaves, tempered glazing — is real money we price from the first visit. We test the ground and read the slope early so the quote matches your actual dirt.