Enter areas one at a time, get a single total, and see what that figure means on the drafting side: permit-set scope and Title 24 energy compliance.
Enter each room or area on its own row. Length times width, in feet.
Nothing here is a quote, a bid, an engineering determination or a boundary determination. We are a drafting and design firm: we coordinate with a licensed structural engineer and a Licensed Land Surveyor when your project needs one, rather than performing or stamping that work ourselves.
Split irregular shapes into rectangles and give each one its own row; that is what the rows above are for. An L-shaped addition is two. A great room with a breakfast nook pushed out of it is two. For anything curved or angled, take the widest length and width. The result runs a little high, which is the direction you want to be wrong in when you are scoping drawings.
A permit set is scoped on the area being drawn, and that includes rooms the energy model never sees. A garage still needs a plan, elevations, a section and a door schedule. Title 24 is scoped on conditioned floor area alone. Confusing the two is the usual reason a homeowner is caught off guard by which number turns up on which document. Enter everything you want drawn above, then mentally take the unconditioned space back out when you are thinking about the CF1R.
Take two 800 square foot projects. An addition into an existing house has to have the existing conditions measured and drawn before anything new can be shown, so as-builts add scope that a detached ADU on open ground never carries. We capture those conditions with a Matterport 3D scan instead of a tape measure, which shortens the field work without removing it from the scope. A second story adds framing plans, a stair section and often a daylight plane study. A complicated roof adds planes and details. A sloped lot adds grading and drainage. And a property with unpermitted work needs legalization documentation before the new scope is even reviewable.
Which counter you submit to matters as well. San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Fremont and Palo Alto do not expect identical sheet sets, and a package that satisfies one may need more at another. Our permit sets and expediting page sets out what a complete package usually contains, and the Title 24 CF1R energy calculations page covers how the report is produced and registered.
Small projects hit a floor. The measure-up, the site plan, the title sheet, the code data and the sheet setup cost roughly the same at 200 square feet as at 700, so multiplying a very small area by a per-square-foot rate lands under any real minimum. Read the ranges above as planning figures for a mid-sized scope, and expect a small job to price nearer a fixed minimum than the multiplication.
For scoping drawings it makes little difference; you are talking about a few percent either way. For Title 24 and for zoning floor area the definitions are specific, and they are not the same as each other, which is why the drawings state the convention being used on each sheet rather than leaving it to inference.
For drafting, yes. It still has to be drawn, dimensioned and detailed. For Title 24, no: it is not conditioned floor area, so the energy model leaves it out. Carports, covered patios and unconditioned storage behave the same way.
An addition has to be documented against a house that already exists: scanning and drawing the existing conditions, matching framing and finishes, showing how the new ties into the old. A freestanding ADU carries none of that. ADU sets are often larger in area and simpler per square foot.
No. The CF1R is priced on its own because it is a separate deliverable with its own registration, and it is frequently needed on projects where we are not drawing the full set. Add that line to the drafting figure to see the whole documentation cost.
Neither one. Plan check and permit fees go to the jurisdiction and follow its own fee schedule. Construction is your contractor's number. Everything on this page is the cost of producing drawings and compliance documents, which is the work we do.
No. Lot coverage, setbacks and anything else that depends on a property line need a boundary established by a Licensed Land Surveyor, which we coordinate rather than perform. This tool adds up rectangles you measured, which makes it a scoping figure and not a survey.
Residential or commercial, drafting or Title 24 — send a few details and we'll follow up with next steps and a free quote.
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