When my parents bought the house that they planned to retire in, I noted that the basement was fully finished.
- Apparently, it had been sort of a guy cave for the previous owner.
But I also noticed that there weren’t any Heating, Ventilation, & A/C air ducts down there either. Still, the basement was nice & would end up serving my parents well. They moved out of the large family home I grew up in with my siblings & brothers into their current stadium about 6 years ago. I was surprised they kept the family home that long. Just the heating & cooling costs alone would have driven me to sell it. Yet, I feel mom was not at all sold on the proposal of giving up his house. Finally, they were able to find a much smaller house but one that was still awfully nice & in a gated community. I wondered what that location must mean to the mortgage payments & I finally got my answer. This past couple of years, Mom’s investments have been taking a beating & his finances were not where he’d want them. Just paying the mortgage was becoming a stress. So I came up with the proposal of having the Heating, Ventilation, & A/C professionals come out to install a pair of ductless heat pumps inside the basement. Then, I helped him created a small galley kitchen. Added to the bathroom & the interior walls already existing, our improvements created a great apartment. They are now covering nearly 69 percent of the mortgage by renting out the basement.