A basement with a separate entrance is a fundamentally different conversation than one without. Once you are talking about a unit someone could live in independently, you are no longer only dealing with framing and finishes. You are dealing with a kitchen, a bathroom, egress in every sleeping room, separation between the units, and questions about parking and occupancy that have nothing to do with construction and everything to do with local rules.
Be clear-eyed about this part: whether an accessory apartment is permitted at your address, and under what conditions, varies sharply from city to city along the Wasatch Front, and sometimes by zone or neighborhood within the same city. Owner occupancy, parking, entrance location, unit size, and licensing all get treated differently in different places, and the rules change over time. We will not tell you what your city allows. Your city is the authority on that, and the right first call is to your planning or community development department, before you spend money on drawings.
A suite costs more than a finished basement of the same square footage, and the extras are not decorative. A separate entrance can mean excavation, a stairwell, a door in a concrete wall, and drainage for all of it. A kitchen brings its own plumbing, venting, and electrical. Every bedroom needs its own egress opening, so the count of bedrooms multiplies the concrete work directly. Separation between the units affects the ceiling and stairwell assemblies. On top of construction, city approvals, drawings, and any required site work carry their own costs. How your bathroom drains matters here too, exactly as it does in any basement.
That depends entirely on your city, your zone, and sometimes your specific address, and the rules differ significantly between Wasatch Front cities and change over time. We will not guess for you. Call your planning or community development department and ask about accessory dwelling units at your address. Get that answer first, because it determines whether the rest of the planning is worth doing.
In practice, an independent unit almost always needs its own way in and out, and cities frequently have opinions about where that entrance can be and how it looks from the street. If the basement is not a walkout, creating one means excavation and cutting the foundation wall for a door, which is a substantial part of the project.
Sleeping rooms below grade generally require an egress opening, and that applies to each of them, not one for the unit. Two bedrooms usually means two concrete cuts and two window wells. This is the item that most often changes the math on a suite, so decide your bedroom count before you get attached to a layout.
It is still worth asking your city. Some places treat a non-rented accessory suite differently than a rental, and some do not distinguish at all, particularly once a second kitchen is involved. The construction questions are identical either way: entrance, kitchen, egress, separation, and mechanical access. The approval question is the one that varies.
The full build across the whole footprint: framing, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, insulation, drywall, and finishes. Sequencing matters more than style here, because the rough-in inspections have to pass before a single sheet of drywall goes up and hides the work.
Learn more →A rec room and a bedroom are different requests. A basement bedroom generally needs an egress opening, and in most Utah houses that means cutting the concrete wall, digging a well, and handling drainage rather than swapping a window.
Learn more →Everything downstairs depends on where your main sewer line sits. Above the basement floor, and you are looking at a pump system instead of gravity drainage, plus venting that has to be routed up through the house.
Learn more →Finish half the basement now and leave the rest open, or gut a basement that was finished decades ago. Both are common here, and both start with what is behind the existing walls and under the existing floor.
Learn more →A few details now saves you a round of phone tag later. Prefer to talk it through? Call 801-644-9000.
