Arleta ADU Construction Beside an Old Block Wall
Arleta ADUs placed after the masonry wall at the back line is checked for lean, footing and steel, so the new footings never undermine it.
A level held against the block wall along an Arleta lot's rear line gives the first reading of the visit. Older garden walls lean, crack along their mortar joints or stand on shallow footings, and some were laid without steel in the cells. A new unit may sit only a few feet from that wall, so how plumb it stands, and what holds it up, shapes where the unit's footings can go.
Digging near the wall's footing
A trench for the unit's footing can take away soil the wall depends on, and a wall built without reinforcing has little reserve if that happens. We dig a small hole at its base to see how deep its own footing runs and whether a mortar cap hides loose block along the top. If the two footings would crowd each other, the unit moves toward the yard, or an engineer details a foundation that stays clear of the soil under the wall. Either way, the wall is braced before any digging starts near a section that already leans.
A wall shared with the neighbor
A wall standing on the line is, by default under state law, a shared responsibility of both owners, so a repair, a raise or a rebuild is agreed with the neighbor in writing before work starts. A cracked or leaning section near the unit can be braced, capped or rebuilt, and that work gets its own entry in the written scope. The wall's condition matters for the windows as well. A sound, tall wall can screen a bathroom window on that side, while a low one leaves the glass facing the next yard. The main house's own fences and gates are left as they are.
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ADU Construction in Arleta: common questions
Along the side of the yard away from the wall where possible, since a trench at its base does the same harm as a footing. Once the combined load is worked out, the unit draws power through the house panel or a new LADWP meter, water from a branch with its own valve, and the drain from a tie-in at the lateral after a camera run.
Yes, and where the garage backs onto the masonry, both get examined together. Its back wall may bear on the same footing as the masonry, or lean on it. We find where one ends and the other begins, then test the slab, the sills and the rafters for a dwelling's loads before the conversion is drawn.
Through the way the windows open. A main house with double-hung sash looks odd beside casements, so the unit gets hung windows with the meeting rail at the same height, or casements made to look like them where a bedroom needs the wider escape opening. The roof's pitch and eave depth and the width of the siding boards are copied from the house too.
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Send the details and we will set up a walk-through and a written scope.