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My place turned sixty this year, and the Santa Ana wind just about took the awning off the back patio last week. That’s usually when I start thinking about doing this house properly instead of patching it again — a real addition, not another lean-to bolted onto old stucco. As of mid-September 2026, here are the five home addition contractors my neighbors keep bringing up, the ones with enough of a paper trail that I’d actually pick up the phone.
I didn’t invent this list — I read what’s already on record. Google, Angi, Thumbtack and BBB pages, a floor of twenty-plus reviews and 4.3 stars, something recent in the last year, and the state contractor board’s file where one exists. All five work the Riverside area. Standard disclosure, and I mean it: no one on this list paid to be here, and I have no business relationship with any of them.
1. OC Builders Group
Full second stories are the job that shows up here again and again — one reviewer called it a major undertaking and meant it. Google has them at 5 out of 5 across seventy-five reviews, Angi agrees at 5 out of 5 from twenty-one, and BBB gives an A+. What people mention isn’t the drywall, it’s that when plans shifted mid-project, somebody called and explained why before the crew kept going. Photograph your roofline and attic access before you dial — the honest first question is whether your existing foundation can carry a second floor.
2. Construction Station Flooring and Design
Eighteen years teaches a crew to stop panicking when you ask for one more thing. Google puts them at 4.8 from twenty-one reviews, Thumbtack close behind at 4.75 from twenty, and the story that repeats is a Riverside job where the client kept changing her mind and the crew just adapted. Good pick if your addition is really the finish work — tile, windows, the closet that grew. Photograph where your old floor meets the new room; that seam is where the surprise costs hide.
3. CalBear Construction Inc
If your addition is a bathroom wearing a bigger project’s clothes, this name comes up in my neighborhood group on repeat. A hundred thirty-one Google reviews land them at 4.6, nine years in business, background-checked crews, an A+ from BBB. What people notice isn’t the tile pattern, it’s that the space stays clean enough to walk through in socks after old concrete comes out. Photograph your plumbing stack and any ceiling stains below it first — hard water and old galvanized pipe turn a bathroom add into a repipe conversation fast.
4. United Carports LLC
Not every addition means more roof over the kitchen — sometimes it’s the detached garage or shop out back. Family business, fifteen years, eighty projects on the public record, a hundred forty-one Google reviews at 4.8, BBB A+. One reviewer’s whole project was a forty-eight by fifty-four foot building, built start to finish, with nobody minding her looking over their shoulder. Photograph your property stakes, or your best guess at them — setbacks are the first thing they’ll confirm before any permit moves.
5. Dalinghaus Foundation Repair
Before you add weight to a sixty-year-old slab, you want to know what the slab’s actually doing. Seven hundred sixty-seven Google reviews sit at 4.9 — nobody else here has that many people willing to say so. Thirteen years in, BBB accredited, and the story that repeats is measurements, plain-language explanations, no fix nobody understands. One reviewer said what another contractor called a slab problem clearly wasn’t one. Photograph every crack, inside and out, with a coin or tape measure in the shot for scale — that’s the difference between a real answer and a guess over the phone.
Who do you actually call
Going up instead of out? OC Builders Group. Still picking tile while the framing’s already up? Construction Station. Bathroom’s the whole reason for the extra square footage? CalBear. Want the garage instead of more house? United Carports. Worried about what’s under all of it? Dalinghaus, before anybody swings a hammer…