Your parcel decideswhether you get an ADU.Not your budget.
Detached units, basement conversions, garage conversions and attached multigenerational units across Denver and the Front Range — starting with whether your lot permits one at all.
The first useful answer comes from your address.
Almost every ADU conversation starts with a budget and a picture. It should start with a zoning check — because eligibility, permitted type and maximum size are decided by your parcel and your jurisdiction, and everything else is downstream of them.
Eligibility varies by jurisdiction and often by zone district inside a jurisdiction. Two houses on the same street can get different answers. Size is usually a function of lot area, lot coverage limits and a cap tied to the primary dwelling. Setbacks, separation from the main house and height limits then decide where it can physically sit — and height bites hardest on detached units.
Colorado ADU rules have moved considerably in recent years and are still moving. Anything you read more than a year or two old, including a neighbour's experience, needs re-checking against your jurisdiction's current adopted rules before it informs a decision.
Four routes to an ADU, and they price very differently.
Detached ADUs
A separate structure in the yard. Most flexible, usually most expensive — it is a small house with its own foundation, roof, services and utility connections.
Basement ADUs
Often the cheapest route if the basement exists. Runs into ceiling height, a compliant egress opening cut through the foundation, moisture, and a separate entrance.
Garage conversions
The shell exists, which is the appeal. The work people underestimate is insulation, floor assembly over a cold slab, heating — and replacing the parking you just removed.
Attached & multigenerational
An addition with its own entrance, kitchen and bath. Structurally a home addition, with fire separation and sometimes separate metering on top.
Over-garage units
Building above an existing garage, which asks the same question a pop-top does: can the structure below carry a floor?
Utilities — the quiet cost
Water, sewer, power and gas. Whether you extend from the house or run new services frequently moves the number more than the finishes do.
Ask any ADU builder this: who does the zoning verification, and does it happen before or after I pay for design? An ADU redesigned twice because the first two versions were not permittable is an expensive way to learn your lot coverage limit.
Six steps, and the first one is a phone call.
Discovery call
A short call to understand the project, the property and whether we are the right fit.
Job walk
We look at what is actually standing — structure, services, access.
Design
Drawings worked through with you, so you approve a plan rather than imagine one.
Engineering & permitting
Structural engineering and the permit set, handled by us.
Construction
One project manager, and a job site kept clean because you usually still live here.
Walkthrough
We finish the list you write, not the one we think is left.
We do not have a published ADU client review yet. What we do have is a repeat client who intends to use us for one — and we would rather show you that in her own words than imply something we cannot evidence.
I’ve worked with them multiple times, and they have always been super professional. Toby and his team were always timely and responsive when I asked questions. I’ve referred several friends to AAA because they do great work. My family is considering building an ADU, and we plan on having AAA build it.
Give us the address. We will check what your lot allows.
Before anyone draws anything, we will tell you whether an ADU is permittable on your parcel, which types qualify, and roughly how big it can be.
Prefer to talk now? Call (720) 637-2060
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