What an ADU Actually Is, and Who It's Built For in Kane County

An accessory dwelling unit, an ADU, is a small, self-contained home built on the same lot as an existing house. It has its own kitchen, bathroom and entrance, and it functions as a complete living space on its own, just at a much smaller footprint than a primary residence. In Kane County, where family land often gets passed down and used across generations, ADUs solve a specific set of problems that a full second home usually can't solve as fast or as cheaply.

A real example, not a hypothetical

Redrock Homes carries the 2024 Cavco Durango ADU, a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom home at 640 square feet, built at 14 feet by 48 feet, priced at $99,900. That's a complete, permanent, code-compliant home, not a shed with plumbing. It's the same factory-built construction standard as their full-size homes, steel-framed base, glued and fastened floors and walls, HUD code compliance, just scaled to a footprint that fits in a backyard, next to a family home, or on a smaller lot where a full-size house wouldn't make sense.

Who actually ends up buying one

A few situations come up again and again. Parents wanting to age in place near family, but not inside the same walls as their kids, a separate space on the same property solves that without anyone giving up privacy. Adult children who need a place to land, sometimes for a season, sometimes longer, without stretching a family into a full home purchase. Property owners looking at a rental unit on land they already own, where 640 square feet of self-contained living space goes up for a published $99,900 on land that is already theirs. And people who simply want a smaller footprint, less to heat, less to clean, less to maintain, on land they already have.

What actually goes into an ADU project beyond the home itself

The home price is the anchor number, but an ADU still needs its own pad, its own utility connections and its own permit, even when it's sitting twenty feet from an existing house. That's a place where Redrock Homes' general contractor license in Utah and Arizona matters just as much on a 640 square foot build as it does on a full-size home, someone still has to manage the excavation, the water and power hookups, and the county permitting process, and it's the same company doing all of it rather than three separate contractors coordinating around each other.

Green and efficiency options apply here too

Because the Durango ADU comes through the same Cavco line as Redrock Homes' full-size inventory, the same efficiency options are available, solar packages, low-VOC paints, insulated windows and energy-saving appliances. On a smaller footprint, those choices go further per square foot than they would on a bigger home, since there's simply less space to heat, cool and light in the first place.

One factory warranty, either way

It's worth knowing the Durango carries the same one-year factory warranty as every home Redrock Homes sells, and the same HUD code inspections apply regardless of square footage. A smaller home doesn't mean a smaller standard. The construction crew setting an ADU on your lot is the same licensed and insured crew, recertified every two years, that sets a full-size home, and the same Utah Manufacturing Housing Association training the owner brings to every job applies just as much to 640 square feet as it does to 1,700.

Is an ADU the right call for your property

It depends on what you actually need, more space for family nearby, a rental unit, or a smaller home for yourself while the main house goes to someone else. What it doesn't depend on is starting from scratch. If you've got land in Kanab, Cedar City or Richfield and you're weighing whether an ADU fits, Redrock Homes can walk the lot with you and talk through what the Durango, or a comparable unit, would actually take to get in the ground. Call (435) 644-3225 or stop by 1875 S Hwy 89A.