Getting Garage converted. Need some advice before i go ahead

Hey peeps. I'm new to the forum but i've found a wealth of information which is really useful...however i could just do with some ideas/advice more relevant to my situation. Sorry its a lengthy one! I've uploaded the plan drawings here. Their on my webspace so they wont be deleted. I can't resize them at work. http://4dsounds.tesseractband.co.uk/plan1.jpg http://4dsounds.tesseractband.co.uk/plan2.jpg I'm moving house soon to a row of 4 houses. They're 3 story townhouses so its bigger than what we have now. Behind the houses are the garden and then all the garages which i'm planning to convert. All the other houses get double garage...i get a single one dam it!!! At least thats shaved some money off buying the house to go towards converting it! Anyway...Its a single garage with a back door, main front door (which we're thinking of bricking in level with the exterior walls. Or leave it and brick it up behind.) The garage is not connected to any houses..only other garages. The houses are about 15/20ft away from the back of garages. There is nothing infront of the garages except driveways and houses a good distance away. There is a gap in one of the wall (where the angled roof is) into the neighbours garage as shown in 2.jpg. So i dont know whether to brick this up, which could be tricky because of the wooden beams....or just add some kind of meshy to allow for mineral fibre/insulation to be shoved in the loft above the ceiling that needs to be made. I'm primarily going to be using the mini studio just for mixing and writing (most of the time I use a POD/Axe fx for writing)..however I want a small booth for micing up guitar amps and recording vocals etc. No drums to worry about. I was thinking of adding a floating floor just to the booth to save money as that is going to be the loudest source. Some kind of cheap floating floor anyway...any suggestions here would be cool! As for the budget...i guess around £3-£5K should be do-able (bearing in mind i should be able to get the insulation & treatments for around 1-2k. I'm not very tech savy when it comes to designing. The dimensions of the garage with nothing in it is rougly 565mm W, 260mm L, 260mm H roughly (260H being up to the beams where the ceiling would be created). In feet roughly 18.8'W, 8.6'L, 8.6H' i think haha. Although with the design i have in mind i'm only going to be left with around 384mm W and 210mm L so its gonna be tight!! I've come up with a few ideas and i think the images i've posted seem to work the best. A few questions :shock: Obviously the cheaper the better...but i dont wanna skimp out on stuff too much. I have a friend who is an auralex distributor which is handy! Floor -Whats the best way to do the floor? There is a 10cm lip between the back door and the concrete floor which could be handy. -I wanted to create a floating floor for the booth which will be the loudest room. Whats the best way to create this and what sort of layers are involved? I don't need to go all out here, but something to tame the low frequencies would be nice. -For the mixing room...would some kind of underlay and wooden floor be enough? (I'm looking at wooden floor for both rooms...just some kind of ikea wood panels will do the job. Any specific material best for the job?) Or maybe its not very expensive to have this floor on some small rubber joints/nodes (i've read so much latly that i can't remember the proper term!) Ceiling -How the hell do i approach this since there isn't one? Several people have suggested filling in the big void which will be above the ceiling (within the angled roof) with mineral fibre/insulation...i'd obviously have to create some kind of partition into the neightbours garage where there is a gap (only on the one side). -Again, what kind of construction would be best with the layering/leaf stuff etc? Walls -Is 25cm-30cm going to be enough for a decent interior wall/frame like this:

or

-How expensive could the above type of walls become? -I'll probablly be blocking up the the main front garage door. I've read concrete blocks with air gaps inside are best? Would this be easy to dismantle if it came to a house resale? We may look at a proper conversion with a door where the big door is so it would be easier to resell if need be. -I havn't even looked into doors. On plan 1.jpg the entrance to the garage is the existing door which will be pretty useless sound wise. I was thinking of leaving it in and fittting an accoustic sealed one behind it. Then a reasonably sealed door from the booth into the mixing room. -Do i build the interior walls on top of the floating floor/new floor or on the original concrete? Design -Would it work? Anything is going to be better than the room im mixing in currently but i obviously want to get the best possible with the space. Anything to bear in mind? -Regarding plan1.jpg...are the angles ok/worth it? I may reduce the gradient of the angle to increase the room size slightly...but any angle should help a little? -I may add a very slight angle on the back wall. Just a /\ at around 6-10 degrees if this would help also? Builders? -Any one know some good companies/contacts for building this sort of thing!! I'd like to do as much as possible but id have no idea where to start when it came to things like ceilings, electrics etc. Plus i wouldn't mind a few XLR, jack and speaker cable connections running from the mixing room to the booth. The wooden frames i could probably do with friends who have built their own rehearsal studios with the help of the auralex distributor. I would like to get some quotes from professional builders who has experience with accoustics though. With all this in mind...do you think it would be isolated enough to mix during the night? Not record guitars, just mix. Sorry theres so much but I want to start planning it all properlly as we should be moving in a month and i don't really know where to start with it all! Sorry about the size of the images! I have a widescreen and i've written this post from work so i don't have access to edit it. Any help or advice would be really appreciated!

First piece of advice would be for you to resize your attachments, your post is very difficult to read. Ensure the width of the jpegs are no more than 750pixels.

clunk wrote:

First piece of advice would be for you to resize your attachments, your post is very difficult to read. Ensure the width of the jpegs are no more than 750pixels.

Sorry i'm unable to resize the widescreen screenshots as im at work. I've deleted them but you can see them here: http://4dsounds.tesseractband.co.uk/plan1.jpg http://4dsounds.tesseractband.co.uk/plan2.jpg (they won't be deleted)

Hi Acle, you have a fair few problems here, the first of these is that gap between your garage and your neighbours. Effectively it means you have no isolation between you and the other garages, this may not be a major problems if they are rarely used but if your neighbours use their garages for diy for example you will have to deal with lots of noise from here. Insulation alone will not be enough to maximise your isolation from these garages, you need to find a way to seal your garage off from the rest using some form of solid barrier which can be sealed all round. Next you need to build rooms inside your garage, it may be worth looking at erecting inside out walls given the restricted space you have, these are stud walls with gypboard on the outer face of each wall, allowing the inner frame to house acoustic treatments and are a space saving method. having built these walls you could also use these as the support for an independant ceiling effectively creating 2 sealed boxes within the garage space. Read the post about floating floors before you go this route, it seems that these can cause problems if not constructed right and in many cases you may be better not building such a floor. 2 options seem to be worth considering, one is a concrete floating floor and the second a sand filled wooden deck. If you do decide to build a floated floor then you should build the walls of that room on this floor Have you checked the reference section out yet, it has lots of information that will be useful for you in your planning, you should spend sometime and read through this before you jump into your build. Get as much information as you can about the current structure of the garage , for example are the exterior walls single block or cavity walls, this makes a diffence to what you can do, what is the roof finish and is it possible to add mass to this. Good luck, Clunk

Hey clunk - thanks for the reply, much appreciated! Yeah i thought the gap into the next garage would be a problem. I just hope the neighbours will only be storing cars in there! Will find out soon enough. Due to the placement of the wooden beams, its going to be really awkward to try and brick that up. Maybe a builder could help with this one! By the inner room, do you mean the stud walls/frames with insulation and boards on each side...like this? (excuse my noobness! :P) :

I've got that in the plan: http://4dsounds.tesseractband.co.uk/plan1.jpg only i've just coloured it in beige to get the shape first. I've kept around 25-30cm for this though. Will this be enough? I'll try and look into the construction of it some more. Do you think the isolation between the garage and the houses will be ok...this is what im mainly worried about. Anyone know any good accoustic/building companies?

Acle your drawing seems to be suggesting that you intend to build a double frame wall which is not necessary in your case( except between booth and mix room), you should be looking at building a single frame wall for each room with gypboard either on the inner or outer face of this only, the existing walls of the garage act as a single leaf and you only want to create a second leaf as this helps gain the best isolation. As I said above you need to create boxes within you garage with an airspace between the boxes and existing walls, building a double wall assembly loses you isolation as well as space. Read the section about walls for further information and you will see what I mean. All the best Clunk

Picture number 2 with the open access can be closed up with few problems. If framed up from top of wall to rafter, you could install sheetrock on both sides. Insulation in between the sheetrock layers helps. This might keep you in good standing with who ever is on the other side of that wall ;) A good block sealer on the block wouldn't hurt either.

Hey, Thanks for the replies. OK thats interesting that single wall would be enough - would save some pennies! So basically the garage wall, air gap and then this:

I think i'll be fine when it comes to constructing the walls with the help of some friends. But the ceiling? Any other ideas to help keep the low freqnuencies in? I'm still interested in getting a builder involved for the ceiling/gap into the neighbours garage if anyone knows any good ones.

Oh one thought... Do i need to add anything to the existing garage brick wall before adding the stud walls? Like a layer of plasterboard or just leave it as it is?

Acle wrote:

Do i need to add anything to the existing garage brick wall before adding the stud walls?

No. Andre

Acle wrote:

I'm still interested in getting a builder involved for the ceiling/gap into the neighbours garage if anyone knows any good ones.

That is what I am referring to... 2.jpg, the hole in the attic?

Hi Acle, just had a chance to look at your last reply and I'm still a little concerned at your interpretation of the advice, basically on your stud wall you should only put sheetrock on one side creating a 2 leaf system, ie garagebrickwall/airgap(with insulation)/studwork with sheetrock on one side only. Hope this helps, Clunk

Thanks for the help clunk and others! I'm still not 100% on it all but ive got a hold of the "build it like the pros" book. So ill have a good read through that of the next couple of weeks...mainly for the wall construction! I'm not moving till the end of the month..and work probablly won't start straight away till everything is properlly planned. But yeh im confused again now :lol: Avare said i don't need to add anything to the existing garage wall....but you mentioned i need to add insulation to it? The black & white diagram i posted below.....does that depict how it should be? Less layers of plaster board maybe? Sorry for the noobness! I have read through alot of the stickies on here. I'll go through them again I think more thoroughly. Hmmm think im getting insulation and sheetrock mixed up aswell. By insulation do you mean simple weathering type insulation....and sheetrock/mineral wool for accoustics within the studwalls?

I am concerned about the orientation you have for the control room with the short wall behind you. I have the same setup, and it has not been easy getting the acoustics under control. That back wall looks awfully close to your mixing position. Have you considered the other orientation?

I see no mention of HVAC or fresh air supply, unless I missed it. What are your plans for ventilation?

Hi Acle, sheetrock is Gypsium board and when Avare indicated that you don't need to add anything to the existing walls he meant no further sheetrock( I think). Adding insulation will help but it's probably best if it touches the gyp-board on the studwork. What you need to achieve best isolation is a Mass/Spring/Mass solution. The garage wall acts as one leaf and is the first mass, the airspace with insulation acts as the spring and the gyp-board as the second leaf of mass. According to the advice I have found here this achieves the best isolation for your money. BTW I am not an expert but just trying to share some of the information I have found here while designing my own build, I know how it can get a little confusing but I think you will do fine, just be careful to pay attention to the detail. When your basic room is finished you then need to treat the room for reflections etc and advice on room treatments can be found mainly in the acoustics section of the forum. Hope this helps, all the best Clunk

doublehelix wrote:

I am concerned about the orientation you have for the control room with the short wall behind you. I have the same setup, and it has not been easy getting the acoustics under control. That back wall looks awfully close to your mixing position. Have you considered the other orientation?

Yeah i originally wanted it the other way round...but i wanted to put a door where the existing garage door is so we had access to the house from the back. However im now wondering whether it would be best to change the orientation, leave the garage door in there....block it and just put a concrete brick wall behind it and then the stud wall. That would save a little money aswell and would make it easier for taking it down in the future if need be. I've read concrete blocks with air gaps/pockets in them are best? I'd only do this on the garage door side. I've done the image below quickly to see what it looks like. I've put in the white angled areas to try and help eliminate standing waves. Is there anything else i can do to help towards this? The speakers are going to be in corners which sucks aswell so whats the best treatment for them? Anyway im getting a head of myself a little. I'm still a little concerned about a few things...and ventilation is something i need to plan yes! Ventilation: I have looked into it before but ill look again...any tips for my situation would be great. It gets hot enough in my room with a window open :? Damp/Weathering: Hows best to approach this with the garage wall, garage door (bearing in mind ill be building a wall infront of it), and ceiling/the gap into the neighbouring garage. Ceiling: No idea how to approach this really! Angled stud walls: Whats the best way to construct these? Just offset the angle of the wall so theres a bigger air gap? Or add extra walls within a rectangluar shaped room? Offsetting the the stud walls seems like it could be easier? And the main thing: Whats the best order to approach it all? Obviously blocking and walling off the garage door first. Then i assume the ceiling issues, floor then walls? I havn't even started to read up on the doors yet :shock: Really appreicate everyones help on this!