Hello, got a few questions I hope you guys can help..

Currently I live in a Three story townhome (end-unit.) The first floor is actually the garage. If you walk around the house, you go up a few sets of stairs to get you to the front-door patio. The reason for this is because the place is built on a tiny hill.

If you go into the garage and up the stairs, you enter the living room / kitchen. Directly below the livingroom is what would be considered a crawl / walk space. I say walk because the dirt in there starts about 1/2 way into the area and angles up to a vent. The vent is how I access the area (under the front door's patio.)

There is also a door to this area in the garage right next to the entry-way to the stairs.

I've been contemplating on building this area into a room, mainly for 2 channel audio. Since it seems that the dirt is holding the house in place, I figured to hire a structural engineer to come and give me some advice. He stated that it shouldn't be an issue to turn this into a legitimate room (most likely a Den or bonus room due to the lack of windows.) The issue is that right where the dirt starts the retaining wall ends. I'd have to dig the dirt out and have a retaining wall built. The wall would be about 4' tall and 15' wide.

Obviously I'd have to also have a concrete floor built as well.

This person is actually a designer, and he works with an engineer. So far, he's quoted me $2500 to build the designs:

1. construction documents for addition of approx. 250sq foot room involving structural plans and light architectural plans.

And his engineer's charge is $1500 to:
1. Retaining Wall & Design of Basement = $750
2. Coordination, Redline, Review and Stamp of Blueprints = $750
Possible service required : Seismic analysis $750

So far I'm up to $4750 w/out the permit cost! The permit in California could be $1000. Does this seem right? $5750 just to get a piece of paper to say that I can build this?

I live in Orange County, CA. The HOA is Ok with me doing this as long as the city approves the design, which I'm assuming means I get the permit.
:confused:
Thanks guys...

Pete

Bump... since this was my first thread it had to wait for approval, now that it's approved I think it got shoved to the back somewhere.

Thanks guys!

Pete

I was paying $250 per hour for my engineer's time. Your prices seem within the scope of reason. Now granted getting the work done may cost another 10k, so not a cheap undertaking.

Cathan-

Thanks. I think the Engineer quote is actually reasonable.. It's the designer that was a little high.

The other day I had another licensed contractor come over and he's doing the same for about $800 and that includes going to the city to present the plans!