342 N Queen St, Ste 2, Lancaster, PA, 17603
Apartments and In-Law Suites in Lancaster
We ask the zoning question before the drawings, build the separation between two households as a rated assembly, and keep the noise out of the floor above.
You end up with a suite downstairs that has its own way in, its own kitchen and its own quiet.
This covers a basement made into a separate space rather than another room of the house. A second entrance, a kitchen, fire separation, and the sound work that stops one household living inside the other.
Whether a bedroom in it is legal is answered in egress and code, and the drainage under a kitchen belongs with basement bathrooms and bars.
Around forty in-law suites and let apartments finished since 2009, plus the media rooms and sound work that tend to come out of the same conversation.
Most of it is apartments and in-law suites. A bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and somewhere to sit, with a door of its own and a way out that crosses nobody else's kitchen.
Then media rooms, and sound work on its own for a room staying part of the house.
Between a suite and the home above it the ceiling is a rated separation, mineral wool in the joists, resilient channel under them and two layers of board, so what holds the fire also holds the noise.
Two people ring about this. A family moving a parent in and wanting them independent rather than upstairs, and an owner turning a dead basement into a unit somebody can rent.
Nothing to pay for the first visit, so book a walk round and a written price at (717) 555-0162. You go from wondering whether the basement is even allowed to be a home to knowing what it takes.
Our own crew builds the shell and the separation, and the licensed electrical and heating trades take the parts that are theirs.
Services
For the family bringing a parent home who would rather have their own door than a bedroom off the landing, and for the owner with a dead lower floor who would like a tenant paying towards the mortgage. Whether the address will take a second unit is a zoning question, and it gets asked at the counter before anybody draws a line.
For the household that wants somewhere properly dark to watch things, and the basement is the one room in the house with no daylight to argue with. The screen is the easy half. Whether the room gets used at nine at night is settled by what is over your head, so the ceiling goes in before anything is mounted.
For the room sitting directly under somebody trying to sleep, and for the brick row where the joists bear into a shared wall and the neighbors might as well be in it with you. Wool packed tight in the joists, channel so the board never touches structure, and a second layer where it has to go further. Footsteps are the hardest thing to stop.
Most families want the second one and ring up asking for the first.
A suite that opens onto the house is right when the person living in it is family, when nobody is paying rent, and when a shared laundry and a shared front door are not a problem. It is a smaller build and a much shorter conversation with the office.
A self-contained apartment is the answer when somebody is going to pay to live there, when it needs its own way in and out, or when the two households want nothing to do with each other's routines. It is a dwelling in its own right and it is drawn, separated and inspected as one.
We will say which one your house and your lot will actually take, on the visit, and often it is the smaller of the two. Where the zoning will not allow a second unit we tell you that on the first visit rather than after the drawings are paid for.
Every separation between two households is built and inspected as a rated assembly, not caulked afterwards.
The ceiling between a suite and the house above is the piece that matters. Mineral wool packed between the joists, resilient channel screwed across them, and two layers of board with the joints staggered and the perimeter sealed.
Party walls and the walls around a theater are built the same way, on staggered or double studs where the floor space allows, so nothing bridges from one side to the other.
Doors between the two homes are solid core, with a seal and a closer on each, and every alarm in the house is interconnected. Ducts crossing from one home to the other are lined or broken with a flexible section, because a shared duct carries a conversation better than any wall.
Call (717) 555-0162 and somebody will walk the basement with you, say what the separation between the two homes takes, and put it in writing.
(717) 555-0162Two suites the same size can land a long way apart, and the difference is usually in the way in and in how far the separation between the two homes has to be carried.
Which of these apply comes out of a walk round and a look at the lot and the deed, and there is nothing to pay for either of those. Get a free quote
Six to ten weeks end to end on a whole basement, and the loud, dusty part of it is over in the first two.
Ring (717) 555-0162 and somebody calls you back the same day to book a free look at the basement.
Get a free quoteRented space is only an asset at closing if it was legal on the way in.
No published report prices a basement apartment as a resale item. The remodeling studies measure kitchens, baths and decks, and an accessory unit is a zoning outcome rather than a room type, so nobody has put a percentage on one.
What is known is how it goes wrong. An unpermitted second unit becomes a problem the moment a buyer's lender asks what the second kitchen is for, and rooms with no paperwork behind them are worth less than the same rooms with it.
So the value sits in the file rather than in the finish. The zoning approval, the permit and the signed inspections are what let the next owner go on renting it.
The city and the townships disagree about what a second kitchen makes a house, the old rows carry sound sideways through shared brick, and a flat lot gives a suite no way in.
Six recent ones, each named by the town it is in, with the thing about the house that decided how the space was separated.
In-law suite with its own door
Manheim Township
A 1968 split with a walk-out already on the low side. Bedroom, bath and kitchenette, and a rated ceiling under the family living above it.
Apartment in a brick row
Columbia
A brick row with joists bearing into the party wall. Wool, channel and two layers of board across the ceiling and up the shared wall as well.
Tiered home theater
Lititz
Seven seats on two levels, a screen wall built forward of the block, and the whole ceiling hung off the joists rather than fixed to them.
Media room under a bedroom
Ephrata
The room sat directly under a child's bedroom, so the ceiling took a second layer with damping and the ducts crossing it were broken.
Suite with a new areaway
East Hempfield
A flat lot with no way in at all. An areaway cut on the gable end, steps down, a drain in the bottom and a door under a small canopy.
Two homes split at the stair
Elizabethtown
The stair was shared. It gained walls of its own, a solid core door at the top and one alarm loop so both homes sound together.
Rated 5 out of 5
Smelled damp down there every summer we owned the place. They drained the floor before a stud went up, then framed and finished it. Third July down there and no smell.
Rated 5 out of 5
Stone foundation, 1880s farmhouse, and the township sat on the permit two weeks longer than anyone wanted. Curt called every Friday of that wait anyway. The bar and the family room were done by August.
Rated 5 out of 5
My mother moved in with us in the spring, so the basement had to be an apartment by then. The stair was the part I never thought about. She has her own door at the top now and comes and goes without us.
Tell us what the cellar does after a wet week and somebody comes out to look at it.
Get a free quoteFAQs
What people ask before building a suite downstairs
That is a zoning question and the answer changes with the address. Most townships allow an accessory unit for family and set conditions on letting it to anybody else, and the city reads it differently again. It is worth asking at the counter before anybody draws a line.
A kitchen, mostly. Once there is somewhere to cook, an office reads the space as somewhere a household lives rather than somewhere the family sits, and the fire separation, the alarms and the second way out all follow on from that one fixture.
For a unit somebody pays to live in, yes, and it usually decides where everything else goes. For a family suite an internal door is often accepted, but the way out in a fire still has to work without crossing anybody else's kitchen.
Eight to twelve weeks once the permit is in hand, and the permit is the part nobody controls. The framing and the separation are the first three weeks, the kitchen and bathroom the middle of it, and the finish and the inspections the end.
Close to it, and honestly not entirely. Footsteps overhead are the hardest thing to stop because they travel in the structure rather than through the air. Wool, channel and two layers of board take out most of what people actually complain about.
That is a separate permission again, and several townships around here treat it quite differently from a long let. We build it the same either way, but it is worth knowing which you are allowed before the kitchen is ordered rather than afterwards.
Not always. It can run off the existing system, which is simplest, or take a mini split so the two homes control and pay for their own. Where a duct crosses from one home to the other it gets lined or broken, so that it does not carry sound between them.
Most suites get their own, and the drain decides it rather than the space. Where the machines are the only wet thing in the suite they can often go onto an existing standpipe, and where they cannot they join whatever the bathroom down there is already using.
Yes, and it is one of the better rooms to put down there because it does not want daylight. The block walls are framed and insulated first, and the ceiling wants doing properly before the screen goes on the wall rather than a year after it.
Yes. Every smoke alarm in both homes is wired so that one sounding sets off all of the others, and that is checked at the end. It is the cheapest part of the whole separation and it is the part most often left out of work somebody did themselves.
Yes, and most people do. The stair is sheeted and screened, the cutting and breaking are done in the first fortnight, and the rest of it is quiet trades. Where the ceiling is being opened under a bedroom we agree between us which days that happens on.
Very little changes, and people do it. A kitchen taken out leaves capped services in a wall and a room that reads as a den again, which is sometimes exactly what a buyer wants. The separation and the sound work stay, and nobody ever asks for those to come out.
We have worked on Lancaster basements since 2009 and we call back the same day.
Lancaster Basement Pros finishes basements in Lancaster, Lititz, Ephrata and the townships around them. Drainage, a sump and a vapor barrier first, then framing, board, floor, ceiling and lighting. Bathrooms, wet bars, egress windows and in-law suites too. Foundation repair and radon work go to the trades licensed for those.
Why call a basement crew and not a general builder?
Whether the basement is dry and empty or wet and full of boxes, the next move is the same. Call (717) 555-0162 and somebody rings you back the same day to arrange a look at it. You get a scale layout and a written price out of that visit, and no obligation to do anything with either.
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office@lancasterbasementpros.com
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342 N Queen St, Ste 2, Lancaster, PA, 17603
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