Help with HVAC and general plan for small studio

Hi, newbie here. I will do the best I can. I am planning on building a rehersal room studio from scratch. I have read tons of posts here and have "the book". My goal is to have a single room that is mainly for my band to practice in. We may track for writing purposes but I have access to a pro studio for actual recording. We play all types of music but we definately rock out at times and can get up to 100 db. Closest neighbor is about 60-70 feet away. There is a 6 foot cinder block wall at the perimeter of my land and the studio will be 8-10 feet away from that. Wall is in between us. Not bothering the neighbors is the main concern. Having a nice sounding jam room is second. I have a basic layout designed. I need help with some things though. I am looking at about 800 sq. ft. +/- $100K Double wall construction I am relying on Rod's book for the general wall, insulation, floor build. I tried to follow ideal room dimensions for a nice sounding room. 25' L x 18' W x 10' H I have not decided on treatments yet. I would love comments on: 1. HVAC design. Since this is from scratch I am going to hire a pro but thought that some of the ideas on this site might be better. 2. General layout 3. Sound proof doors a. with the 2 doors, do I need to worry a lot about the inner door if I purchase a pre-fab door from Overly ( or equivalent ) with a STC rating of 55 or above for the exterior door. 4. Any forseen problamatic areas that I am missing? thanks.

No replies. Gee what did I do wrong?

Hi zh.guitar and welcome to JLS RSD! You did nothing wrong. What it is that sometimes a thread does attract some people to post on, or they think other people can reply better, or the people who will reply have not been on the site or haven't had the time. First off, your budget is quite realistic if you are going to do much of the labour yourself. If not it is tight, but still realistic. To your questions in easy to answer order:

2. General layout

It looks fine. If you think of recording in the future with a mobile, have conduit/duct(s) in the floor, for running snakes etc. The bigger, the better. Several to keep different level signals seperate. A hospitality/kitchen counter? Or is that the frig in the drawing?

4. Any forseen problamatic areas that I am missing?

If this a commercial facility or possible, ADDA requirements for access. Windows? If you are building from scratch, I recommend making the outer wall from brick or concrete for better low frequency isolation.

3. Sound proof doors a. with the 2 doors, do I need to worry a lot about the inner door if I purchase a pre-fab door from Overly ( or equivalent ) with a STC rating of 55 or above for the exterior door.

High STC rated doors are very expensive, and still not very good with low frequencies. Two low 40s STC rated door assemblies with the hallway very absorbent will be more effective at low frequencies and cost significantly less.

1. HVAC design. Since this is from scratch I am going to hire a pro but thought that some of the ideas on this site might be better.

Since you are not worried about sound between studio/control room etc. this is relatively straightforward, for studio familiar designers. Keep the air flow velocity around 100 fpm at the vent, 200 fpm for five feet of the ducts by the vent, and 300 fpm for the rest. Use acoustically lined ducts, use a decoupler between the unit and the ducts and have at least one bend in the ducts before entering the rehearsal room and one before the vents. This will give world class performance. You can go as high as 300 cfm, 600 cfm and 1,000 cfm and the noise level will be around 30 dBa. For reference, the THX standard for cinemas IIRC is 30 dBa. If this seems daunting to you, go with a pro design it. Glenn Stanton, John Sayers, and Rod Gervais all do this professionally. Good luck and congratulations. You know that good studio building is 90% design and 10% construction. Andre

The place in the plan is for a frig and a counter top. Nothing fancy but a place to put your beer. It is not a commercial facility, just a studio in my backyard. I like your comments about the doors and the low frequency. Where do I purchase "Two low 40s STC rated door assemblies"? I would like to have a pro design it but I am more concerned about having someone pro checking the building progress to make sure it's being done right. I don't know anyone here in New Mexico. I plan to learn myself from Rod's book and try to keep an eye on it myself. thanks for your comments.

Where do I purchase "Two low 40s STC rated door assemblies"?

Maybe my wording confused you. I meant to be clear that what I am referring to is a door, seals, frame and all hardware. Not just the door blank. Overly, IAC, and Ambico all make these. Rod's door is good also. Andre

thanks, I got it

This post is directed at people reading thread because the subject matter fits in. I am certain that you have researched this already zh.guitar, or are about to, to confirm what I wrote about high STC rated doors. Door systems regardless of their high STC ratings, almost all have poor Low Frequency (LF) Transmission Loss (TL). The attached image is from the IAC (one of the top acoustic isolation door manufacturers) door brochure Door Bulletin SCD 000. It shows the TL of doors rated from STC 43 to 64. At higher frequencies, the greater the STC rating, the greater the TL. However, at 63 Hz, the highest rated door has only 1 dB greater isolation than the lowest rated door! With music the greatest difficulty is controlling LF TL. For effective LF TL multiple doors and sound locks are necessary.