Best location for chins?

[aprinceton]

Hi, I'm sarah. I've had my chinchillas Aurora and Belle for about 3 1/2 months. To beat the summer heat, they've been living in the basement. However, now that it's getting colder out, the basement is now the warmest place in the house. I need some opinions from experienced chinchilla owners! I can keep them in the basement or my room. Here are the good and bad of each location:

Basement: cool in summer. Roomy play area to run around. No other animals and no people bugging them. Easier to clean.
Warm in the winter (about 70 right now). Belle had a small red spot on her ear, does that mean she's too warm? Furnace kicks on and off and scares them sometimes. People walking around upstairs sounds noisy from the basement. Sometimes people paint down here and it smells a little. Not super fumey, but you can smell it.

My room: would have to give them a slightly smaller play area for out of cage playtime. Dog would be around only at night under supervision, so i'd have to teach him to leave them alone. Harder to keep carpet clean. Warm in the summer: I'm going to get a little ac but I'm not allowed to run it to keep the room cooler than 73ish.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I just don't know which of these pros and cons and more serious: I was hoping you experienced owners would!

 

[Cass C]

You may consider putting an AC unit in the basement to keep them cool, but if you had to move them back and forth you could.

 

[aprinceton]

You may consider putting an AC unit in the basement to keep them cool, but if you had to move them back and forth you could.

There's only two tiny windows in the basement, so I don't think we could get an ac down there. I'd prefer not to move them back and forth (they have two cages connected by a pvc pipe) but I guess I could if I had to.
If I kept them in my room and kept the temp down to 70-73 in the summer and had cooling tiles, would that be okay? It's about 70 for them right now, and it was 75 one day, which is why I want to move them for the cold season.