For a unit that already exists. Tick what actually needs doing and the estimate splits into three: what the code requires, what the rooms cost, and what is there for comfort. Only one of those three is optional.
A planning estimate, not a contractor quote. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
This is a planning estimate, not a contractor quote. It is built from Utah’s own accessory dwelling unit statute, from Bountiful’s published ADU requirements, and from current Wasatch Front ADU cost data. It cannot see your ceiling height, what your lot does at the back, what the panel can carry, or what is behind the basement wall — and those are the things a real price turns on. Impact fee figures are allowances: Bountiful publishes its own schedule, and it is worth confirming the current numbers with Planning on 801-298-6190 before you budget.
This calculator prices work on a unit that is already there. That includes the most common ADU job in this valley, which is not a remodel at all in the usual sense: bringing an existing, unpermitted basement apartment up to standard and onto the record.
The reason it is worth its own tool is that the money goes somewhere people do not expect. On a legalisation the largest share is usually code and compliance — egress windows, fire separation, electrical, and the drawings and inspections to get it recorded — rather than the kitchen, which is the part you can see. So the estimate here is split three ways rather than given as one number.
Nothing is assumed. Tick nothing and the calculator shows an em-dash rather than inventing a scope, because a remodel estimate built on guesses is worse than no estimate at all.
An unpermitted unit needs egress, separation, electrical and an as-built drawing set before it needs a new worktop. Getting it on the record is also what makes it insurable, financeable and saleable, which is usually the real reason to do it.
Bedrooms need a way out. On a basement unit that means cutting the foundation wall and building a well, and it is the single item unpermitted units are most often missing. It is not negotiable and it is not cheap.
Cosmetic, some walls open, or back to the studs. A gut costs about a third more and it buys certainty — on a space last finished decades ago that can be worth more than it costs.
What was normal when it was built is what you find when you open it. A basement finished in the 1970s was rarely intended to be a separate dwelling, and it shows in the wiring, the insulation and the head heights.
A basement unit is reached down a staircase, and every sheet of plasterboard and every cabinet goes that way — as does everything that comes out. A tight or winding stair costs real money across a whole job.
The split matters more than the total. If the budget is tight, the honest order is the code work now and the kitchen next year — not the reverse, which is how a good-looking unit fails an inspection.
Send a description of the property, roughly what you are picturing, and who the space is for. Every plan starts with your lot — the ceiling height, the fall of the ground and what the services can carry decide more than the floor plan does.
It is a common situation and a fixable one. The work is usually egress for the bedrooms, fire separation between the units, electrical brought up to standard, and an as-built drawing set the city can review against. Bountiful approves internal ADUs at staff level, so the path is a good deal shorter than for a new detached unit.
Because an unpermitted unit is harder to insure, harder to finance and harder to sell, and because a unit that fails on egress is a genuine safety problem rather than a paperwork one. It also has to satisfy the same basic conditions as any Bountiful ADU: one per property, the owner living in one of the two, and not renting both.
No. Impact fees attach to new dwellings. An existing unit is not one, and an internal unit would be exempt in any case under Utah's internal ADU statute.
On a typical scope, a little under half — and that is the half you cannot skip. The rest is rooms and finishes, where the choices are. This calculator shows the split explicitly for exactly that reason.
A window big enough and low enough to climb out of in a fire, which on a basement means cutting through the foundation wall and building a lined well outside it, with drainage. It is structural work, not glazing work, and it is required for any bedroom.
If the existing work is sound, a partial scope is genuinely better value. If two previous owners have each had a go at it, a gut is usually cheaper than three surprises. The honest test is whether anybody knows what is behind the walls.
Yes, and it is often the right order. The code items are what make the unit legal and safe to live in; the kitchen is what makes it pleasant. Doing them the other way round is how people end up with a smart unit that cannot be rented.
No. It is a planning estimate. On an existing unit the biggest unknown is what is behind the finishes, which is why the contingency here rises when a unit is being brought onto the record.