All Forum Posts by: Sergey S.

@Andrei Opal, I would add to your question - who will pay for hydro that A/C uses in summer, which could be significant? My guess will be upper tenant, as basement unit does not really need any cooling, it stays cooler naturally most of the summer.

In my case, I added another meter, since I had to redo all electrical throughout anyway, so just another panel was not significant amount. 

@Luc Boiron, thank you for your advice about leaving gas under my name - I checked my primary residence and my usage at coldest months is around $120, which I can take as a basis and incorporate into the rent. 

If upper tenant does not have to worry about heating cost, then hopefully they will not keep the temperature too low for savings and freezing the lower tenant. I'm thinking to tweaking the furnace to have blower motor run 24/7 to equalize the temperature between the units. I did this at my home and have not noticed big difference in the hydro bill, but helped to keep basement and upstairs comfortable throughout the year.

On another note, have you seen any abuse for the water? If tap is leaking and tenant does not care. Or should I include the clause in the lease that water is covered up to certain amount and anything extra will be billed back to tenant? I can imagine there is some headache in enforcing it and dealing with conflicts... 

@Matt Geerts, I'm in Burlington and plan examiner was ok with sprinkler system instead of 1 HR fire separation for mechanical room, but he wanted to see type of heads we are going to use. I found a company in Stoney Creek that sells all kind of heads and I think it's more reputable to buy from them. Here it is >

https://www.flocor.ca/en/product-catalog/protection-incendie/tetes-de-gicleurs/

Still the question remains about proper installation.

Yeah, how to install sprinklers is not very clear to me. Heads are cheap, but are there any regulations on how they need to be installed, how many heads do I need for 100 sq ft mechanical room, any specific type, connecting with copper and not pex, etc.? Plumbers do not seem to deal a lot with sprinklers and do I really need an engineer's plan for such small room? 

Very useful thread, as I'm going through conversion of bungalow into 2 units right now. 

@Luc Boiron, where did you buy sprinkler heads and was it installed by your plumber?

What would you recommend can be done to ducts to minimize noise transfer between the units? I was thinking to wrap them in something like dynamat type of material to dampen the sound travel.

@Roy N., do you mean install another furnace and AC, or just separate the ducts while keeping one unit to circulate the air? Installing another furnace+AC will be quite expensive. Will it help to reduce the noise noticeably if duct work is separated, but meets in the single furnace/ac unit?

What would you recommend as insulation around the ductwork, is there a product that can be painted or glued over the ducts?

Some cities in Canada have this strange rule where they do not allow accessory unit to be larger than 40% of total floor area. 

We just purchased relatively small house and going through conversion of the basement into a second unit. This rule will make us to lose approximately 100 sq ft, or one bedroom, which means it will be only one bedroom unit. In long term this is really sucks, as one bedroom unit will have less rent income, higher turn around, tenant profile will be not as good.  

When talking with the city, zoning official said that what people have done to get around that rule is a shared space in the basement for laundry/storage. 

Do you have any experience dealing with floor area restriction for the second unit and how to get around it?

My $0.02 - compressor was failing on our fridge and as result it was running at full steam 24/7 (1-2Kwt/h if I remember correctly). Fridge was still cold, but freezer was not as cold as it should be. Good thing we noticed it sooner and compressor was replaced under warranty (10 years for compressor)

@Ming Lim, great suggestion to get deeper coverage, as more people in the property increases the risk

@Debbie Gilbert, Thank you for suggestion. I will give a call to Alex, especially if he owns several student rentals in Hamilton - he would know.

After doing some research, insurance can be a challenge. I dealt with State Farm in the past. What insurance company do you use for student rentals?