We have a studio apartment under our home that we used to rent out.
However, it has become clear that Grandpa can no longer live completely independently so we moved him into the studio apartment instead.
Now we can take him shopping, share meals, and make sure he is taking his medication, and doing okay. Grandpa does not need constant care; he just needs a little more help. The only issue is our HVAC system. The studio apartment shares vents with the whole house. This means that the apartment stays the same temperature as our regular house. This was never a problem for our previous tenants as they could easily close the vents and use space heaters if they were too cold. But this does not work well for Grandpa. It is unsafe for him to stand on a stool to close the vents and I don’t know how safe a space heater would be for him either. What if he starts a fire? I do have to say that the studio apartment does get cooler than the rest of the house because half of it is underground. Also, hot air rises. We were looking into a separate HVAC system for Grandpa’s little space but we don’t want to spend too much money. I also want something that will be easy for Grandpa to operate because he is not very technically inclined. So our options are either to close off the vents entirely and install a ductless mini-split system downstairs or we can install zone control in our existing HVAC system. I’m leaning toward the ductless mini-split system right now because I do not think the zone control would be a lot of help.