ADU Construction in Canoga Park
Canoga Park ADUs cooled by a ductless heat pump under a sealed, unvented attic, with listed vents only where needed and tempered glazing.
Can the unit be cooled without ducts in the attic? On a first Canoga Park visit the reply is usually yes, since a ductless heat pump with a head in each room handles both heating and cooling. Leaving ducts out of the attic also lets us seal it, which removes most of the vents an ember could enter. The walls around it get noncombustible cladding, and every window is tempered.
Sealing the attic
With no ducts to serve, the attic can be built as part of the conditioned space, insulated at the roof deck with closed-cell foam or rigid board above the sheathing. That design needs no attic vents at all, so the eave and ridge openings embers tend to slip through are gone. Moisture is handled by the insulation layers and a vapor control approach that the energy forms confirm. Where a vented attic is still the better fit, each vent is listed for ember and flame resistance and backed with fine mesh.
Placing the outdoor unit
The heat pump's outdoor condenser needs airflow and service room, and we set it on a concrete pad or wall bracket clear of fences, shrubs and corners where leaves pile up. The refrigerant line set enters the wall through a sealed, flashed penetration, and the cover over it outside is metal, so the run does not open a gap in the shell. A condensate line drains to a planted area or a small pump. The condenser faces away from bedroom windows on both buildings to keep its hum out of sleeping rooms.
ADU Construction in Canoga Park: common questions
A sealed attic with no vents, tempered windows and noncombustible siding suit a Canoga Park unit whether or not its parcel turns up on the state's fire map. Where it does, LADBS requires the wildfire chapter, and our drawings already meet it, so the mapping adds notes to the set and leaves the design alone.
Sealed-attic insulation and heat pump sizing land in the energy forms for a Canoga Park unit, and the mechanical plan places each indoor head and the condenser. Coverage under the package is for a single-story unit that qualifies.
It can, and a shared plan lets the two buildings use matching heat pump equipment and one electrical service upgrade sized for both. LADBS permits each building, and we trench for power and refrigerant lines in one pass where the layout allows. The lot is measured for both footprints before any design work.
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Tell us about the house and the adu construction work. We reply about a walk-through and a written scope.