Attached ADU design and construction in Sacramento
An attached ADU is the unit that shares one wall with your house and almost nothing else. Its own entrance, its own kitchen, its own bath — a complete second home that happens to be joined to your first. We design and build them across Sacramento, and most of this page is the stuff we wish every homeowner knew before the first phone call: how the shared wall works, what the City wants, and where the real money goes.
Attached or detached — which fits your lot
The first fork in any ADU conversation is attached versus detached, and on a Sacramento lot the answer usually comes down to geometry. An attached ADU grows off your house, sharing one wall. A detached unit stands alone in the backyard. People assume detached is the default, but a huge share of Sacramento's older lots are long and narrow, and a freestanding cottage needs clear space on every side to satisfy setbacks. Hang the unit off the house instead and you only have to clear the setback on the outer sides — often the difference between a project that pencils and one that doesn't.
There's a structural trade in both directions. Detached buys total independence: no shared wall, no tie-in to your roof, no worrying whether your 1950s footing can carry a new load. You pay for that with a second foundation and a second roof. Attached borrows your wall, your roofline, and frequently your utilities, which trims the budget — but it asks more of your existing house. If the wall it joins is in rough shape, or the foundation needs a transition, some of that savings goes right back into making the connection sound.