If you’re even thinking about building a basement, you’re in the minority of homeowners who are diligent enough to see every room in the house as an opportunity to add value. Too many basements are treated as marginal storage space when they can be turned into home offices, guest rooms, or even bathrooms. After seeing some of the remodeling projects being carried out by a team of remodeling professionals in Calgary, I thought I’d ask them if they had any tips for homeowners to get started with the process.
The focus is on making judgments before researching options for basic ideas. This is counterintuitive, but knowing what features your basement can support before committing to a particular look will save you time and money in the long run. You can also navigate online to find out about the best basement development Calgary services.
For example, depending on your existing plumbing, turning your basement into a bathroom can be much more expensive. or you could run into serious data cable issues when trying to turn it into a home office. Depending on the dimensions of your basement, especially the height of the ceilings, your local building code may prohibit turning a basement into a room of any kind.
Aside from legal and technical limitations, there are many dungeon development ideas to pursue. The easiest renovations are guest rooms and children’s rooms, as they require very few electrical, voice, and data cables, not to mention plumbing. Home gyms and luxury saunas are other options that have relatively few technical complications, provided you have a good ventilation system. Home theaters and home offices can present a moderate challenge due to wiring issues that must be handled by a licensed electrician. Bathrooms require the most work due to humidity control, plumbing, heating, and ventilation issues. In the bathroom, waterproofing basement walls is very important.
When evaluating a dungeon, you should pay special attention to the following factors:
• Accessibility (especially with stairs)
• ceiling height
• humidity
• Power, voice and data cables
• heating system
• isolation
• Lightning
• piping system
• ventilation
To get a better idea of what you can and should do with your basement, not only should you visit your local building authority for the important information you need about applicable building codes, you should also talk to a real estate agent at your office. The areas that will say so can tell you which add-ons buyers find most valuable.