ADU Remodeling Cost Calculator for Reno

The figures published on this site put a kitchen-focused remodel at $20,000 to $45,000, a bathroom-focused remodel at $12,000 to $30,000, a full interior renovation at $50,000 to $120,000, and a renovation with structural or systems repair at $80,000 to $150,000 and up. The home page gives an overall range of $30,000 to $150,000. This calculator builds a number from your specific scope, the age of the unit and what systems are being replaced, and tells you which tier that lands in.

The rough test is three or more systems plus structural work. At that point the walls are open, the unit is uninhabitable anyway, and you are paying to keep a shell whose main virtue is that it already exists. This site publishes new construction from $120,000 for a small detached unit, so the comparison is a real one rather than theoretical. Get a new build priced alongside the renovation before committing — on a small older unit the answer is not always the one people expect.

It depends entirely on what moves. Interior finish work — painting, tiling, flooring, cabinets and countertops — generally needs no building permit. New electrical circuits, rearranged water, waste or vent piping, mechanical work and anything structural do. Moving a sink or a range is therefore a different kind of project from replacing one where it stands. Confirm with the City of Reno or Washoe County, and confirm which one covers your parcel — Spanish Springs, Sun Valley and much of the outlying area are unincorporated county.

Often, and the path is better than it was. It means as-built drawings, a retroactive inspection process, and a real possibility that something behind the walls has to be opened up and redone to satisfy an inspector who was not there when it was built. Nobody can price it precisely until the building department has looked. What has changed is the destination: Nevada's AB 396 and Reno's October 2025 ordinance mean a legal ADU is now a straightforwardly permitted use rather than a variance, so the effort has somewhere to land.

The arithmetic is simpler than for an owner-occupied unit, because the return is measurable. Work out what the unit rents for now, what it would rent for renovated, and how many months of that difference pays for the work. Kitchens and bathrooms move rent; a new roof does not, though it prevents a much larger bill later. The trap is specifying a rental to owner-occupier standard — builder-grade finishes chosen for durability usually return better than mid-grade ones chosen for looks.

Three things, all cheap. Have the electrical panel looked at, because capacity and condition decide whether this stays a finishes job. Have the supply lines checked if the unit is over 35 years old. And find out whether the unit was permitted, because an unpermitted unit changes both the scope and the risk. Any of the three can move a project between the published tiers, and all three are much better known before a contractor prices the work than after.