- Category
- Code and Permits
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California Contract Rules That Surprise Newcomers
A $1,000 deposit cap whatever the project costs, a written contract above $500, and a lien that can attach even after you have paid the contractor in full.
Field Notes
Shorter notes on specific problems
The guides cover whole decisions. These are the narrower pieces: a code rule, a construction quirk of one housing type, a line item that surprises people.
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- Category
- Code and Permits
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Why Your Out-of-State Showerhead Is Not Legal in California
California caps showerheads at 1.8 gallons per minute, basin taps at 1.2 and toilets at 1.28 per flush. All tighter than federal, and it catches online orders.
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- Category
- Housing Stock
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Cutting an Eichler Slab Without Hitting the Heating
Mountain View has roughly 250 Eichlers with hot water tubing cast into the floor slab. How the tubing gets located before any concrete is cut, and why.
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- Category
- Housing Stock
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Postwar Tract Bathrooms in Mountain View
Census data puts 32.8 percent of Mountain View housing in the 1950s and 1960s. Those houses share one bathroom pattern, and it predicts most of a remodel.
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- Category
- Planning
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Venting a Bathroom When There Is No Attic Above It
Post-and-beam houses and flat-roofed additions leave nowhere to run a duct. The two routes that work, the one that ruins a roof, and how fans get sized.
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- Category
- Planning
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Test Before You Demolish: Pre-1978 Mountain View Homes
Over half of Mountain View housing predates 1980. Asbestos and lead testing runs $300 to $800 before demolition, and costs far more discovered mid-project.
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- Category
- Pricing
- Published
Does a Bathroom Remodel Pay for Itself in Mountain View?
Cost recovery data, what a dated bathroom does to a listing in a two-million-dollar market, and why resale is usually the wrong reason to do the work at all.
Start your bathroom project
Call (650) 966-5276, or send the details through the form and a local remodeler prices the job up. The quote is free either way.