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Ask HN: What good use can I put my ~1500 sqft irregular basement to?

1 points by samsungha ↗ HN
I have a decent sized based basement, just about 1500 sqft in all. It's irregular as in it is not one big hall. It is fully finished however & has many rooms, but some have concrete columns in them. It has a kitchen space (no appliances), bathroom (with running water, shower, toilet) & other rooms. The obvious solution would be to rent it out as a house to a bachelor or small family. But I want to explore if I can do something better. Also all my utilities like gas, water heater, water mains etc are housed in the basement, like bang in the middle. So renting seems inconvenient. The basement however has its own separate entrance. I can also enter from within the house. It's been lying vacant for the last 2+ years & I rarely ever use it or even go downstairs. I want to be able to make some use of it & hopefully earn a little side income. What are some options? I'm willing to invest a bit if necessary, but I have no idea where to start.

6 comments

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howard941
Is it possible a family member will need care within the next 5 years? If not could you benefit from a bulky but inexpensive energy storage - thermal mass with the charge coming from an antifreeze-filled solar water panel to the mass, then another circuit coupling the radiant floor heating ? Or electric where you're charging cheap but heavy lead acid cells (with thorough ventilation + at least one backup ventilation system) during the lowest usage times + PV and reselling back to the utility during peak usage?

From a more fun side, how about a large hot tub or "endless" swimming pool? Could even try out the swimming pool and if you don't use it convert it to a battery.

[dead] samsungha
Apart from the utilities hosted there, it's been used as a store room sorta, a few random suitcases, books. Mostly vacant otherwise.
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samsungha
No one hopefully will need care in the next 5 years. I have little kids.

Energy storage sounds intriguing, but solar means, I'll need to have them mounted on my rooftop, right? So I'm thinking that should be around $10k - $20k investment or more. But I'll get free energy & probably can sell it back to the grid. Sure something to think about.

howard941
Depends on your surroundings. Panels on the roof are very roof-unfriendly and you may need to add bracing and plan for shingle damage during the install and extra wear during maintenance. One guy near my house has PV panels in his south-facing front yard, much friendlier to the house, but a lot more susceptible to theft.

And then there's this thing https://sparkonit.com/2019/05/24/build-thorium-reactor-home/

samsungha
Thank you. I'll certainly check these out. But I already have plans underway for solar panels on my roof. Fighting with my HOA to get the permits etc.