Rebuild notes
Plain guidance on permits, cost and design choices for owners rebuilding a house after a fire.
Rebuild notes
What It Costs to Rebuild a House in Los Angeles After a Fire
The cost of a rebuild is a stack of separate lines, and each one moves for its own reasons. Here is what drives them, and how to hold a builder's estimate against an insurance scope.Read the note
LADBS Permits for a Fire Rebuild: What to File and in What Order
A rebuild permit is a sequence of documents, reviews and inspections. Here is what to file with LADBS, in what order, and where the delays usually hide.Read the note
Rebuild Like for Like or Build New? Choosing for a Los Angeles Lot
Rebuilding the house you had and building the house you want follow different paths through the city. Here is how to compare them before the design is fixed.Read the note
Rebuilding in Pacific Palisades: From Cleared Lot to Keys
A cleared lot is the start of a long list of decisions. Here is the order they come in for a Pacific Palisades rebuild, and what to ask the builder who will carry it.Read the note
Questions before a rebuild
We can walk the lot and begin the scope while clearance finishes. Design and engineering can move in parallel, and construction begins once the site is released and the permit is issued.
Yes. We read the insurer's scope against what the house will actually need and write our own estimate in a form you can compare line by line. Where the two differ, we show why.
That choice is yours. Rebuilding near the old size keeps one permit path open, and a new design opens another with its own review time. We lay both out before you decide.
That depends on whether the lot sits in a mapped fire hazard area. Where it does, the code asks for ember-resistant vents, ignition-resistant siding and roofing, and tempered glazing, and we build those in from the plans.
Tell us where your rebuild stands
Send the lot address and where things are today. We reply with the next step and what we need from you to take it.