Completed · ADU · San Jose
A San Jose garage conversion, and the drywall we tore back out
An attached garage in San Jose, long used as informal living space off the kitchen, converted into a properly permitted attached ADU for the owners' son and his wife. Partway through, drywall went up that was neither code-correct nor finished to standard. We took it back out rather than hand it over.
What we built
- Conversion of an attached garage to a permitted, self-contained ADU
- Full framing, insulation and metal furring to the existing structure
- Fire-rated assembly at the required separation, corrected and re-inspected
- Complete kitchen: cabinetry, quartz counters, appliances and plumbing
- Full bathroom
- Bedroom and living space with ductless mini-split heating and cooling
- Exterior weather barrier, lath and stucco, windows and doors
- Every required inspection carried through to final sign-off
The drywall was wrong twice over, and it had already been hung.
A worker trusted with the drywall scope installed regular drywall in an area where fire-rated drywall was required. That is not a finish issue. It is a code issue, on an assembly an inspector looks at specifically, and it does not pass.
The rest of the drywall was not acceptable either. Visible seams, scratches and poor finishing ran through portions of the unit. Either problem on its own would have been enough to stop.
So we stopped. The incorrect drywall was addressed, the inspection that failed was re-done after the correction, and a different drywall specialist was brought in to repair and refinish properly. It cost roughly a month of schedule and it cost us money, because the alternative was handing a family an ADU with defects in it.
Every other inspection on the job passed on the first attempt, and so did the final. The specialist we brought in to fix it is the one we still use.
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