New England detached garage one room studio

Hello! I've been lurking here for the last few months in earnest (ie: obsessively), but more casually for the past few years (I also frequent the tapeop board). I mostly wanted to start this thread to share what I'm up to with this garage conversion, and ask for some advice along the way. This forum is an AMAZING resource, along with Rod's book, so many of the questions I've had have been answered and I feel pretty good in how I'm proceeding so far. We'll see what the experts think, though. :) I'll share some photos soon, and a sketchup file as soon as I get a little better at using it. SOME BACKGROUND I've been doing recording and mixing since the mid 80s in some fashion or another, cassette 4 and 8 tracks, etc. I did an unpaid internship for a couple years at a studio in town here in 2003-2004, and have been gradually getting busier and busier working with mostly local indie and folky bands (lots of amazing music here). I've worked out of a couple warehouse spaces for the last 3 years or so, and am finally ready to have my own dedicated space. Pretty tired of working around the schedules of bands in neighboring spaces, not to mention the city sanitation and plow trucks in the garage across the street. I'm hoping to be able to record quiet acoustic, folk and jazz musicians without fear of hearing oil trucks driving by or airplanes over head (yes, we're near a large oil tank farm, and in the flight path of the airport here!). Also want to be able to record moderately loud bands late at night without bothering our neighbors, the closest of which is around 20 feet. To be fair, they love the music and don't mind hearing a band playing, but still I want to be reasonable to them and the rest of the neighborhood. My wife and I have owned this little bungalow for almost 3 years, and I've had studio plans for the garage pretty much from the get go. Both house and garage were built in the 20s or early 30s. It's outside dimensions are just over 22x16, with a small hip roof. I'd guess the roof peaks around 16 feet or so, and the walls were roughly 8' tall to the roof edge. The walls are typical 2x4 framing, roughly 16" spacing but it varies around the room pretty greatly. Exterior sheathing is 8" t&g pine siding, fairly tight and in good shape from 2' off the ground and up. WHAT'S HAPPENED SO FAR The building has basically been sitting in the ground due to soil building up around the structure, and the low height of the original slab, lots of rot around the bottom 1-2' of the building. We lifted it about 2-2.5' and had a new slab poured that sits much higher, definitely over the water table. The contractors used heavy weight concrete and extra rebar and wire, and also some sort of fiber that is supposed to strengthen the concrete. We then used a new pressure treated sill over the pink strip insulation, tied to the anchor bolts that the concrete guys put in for us. We trimmed the bottom 2' or so, attached new 2x4 studs to the old ones, and set the building back down on a bottom plate (2x4) that we built on top of the sill. The new walls are taller, about 9.5' to the bottom plate. The building is now much straighter, and feels secure for the first time since we've lived there. I'll add photos soon so this is clearer, but the building had more doors that we'd ever know what to do with. The front wall had a large almost 4' wide door towards the left corner, and a regular garage door opening on the right hand side (door was non-functioning due to the condition of the garage, some of the rails were bent, door was stuck in the up position). Also a door on the leftmost corner of the righthand wall, basically around the corner from the garage door opening. Needless to say the front of the building had some structural issues. We've now walled off all but the 4' wide opening in the front. The building has 4 windows, roughly 24x56", one in the center of each side wall and 2 in the back wall. I'm hoping to be able to use 3 of them by building some sort of hinged heavy weight and airtight panel in the inner floating wall that can seal them up when tracking, but hopefully open if it's a nice day outside (summer in Maine is amazing). The original windows have the old wavy type of glass, and we also bought 3 newer double-paned thermal glass windows that are almost the exact same size, and we installed right over the old ones from the inside, which I'm hoping will help on the noise/thermal front and not create some sort of triple glass leaf. More on this later. WHERE WE'RE AT NOW: Our plan is to float an inside-out room and ceiling, completely untied to the outside structure, with around 8-9" of space from the exterior mass to the interior. The stage we're at now is adding the beef to the exterior in between the studs now, 5/8" drywall on top of 4mil plastic for a vapor barrier. We're leaving .25" around all the drywall pieces, and have 3/8" backing rod and osd acoustic green caulking to seal it up. We're going to put R13 pink insulation over this, which should complete our exterior section. QUESTION 1: Can the cleats to hold in the "beef" drywall be small pieces, or should they run the entire length of the drywall & studs? I was hoping we could use maybe 6" sections of 1x2s nailed into the studs to hold the drywall in. Had trouble confirming this in Rod's book and in the forum. For the "floating room", we're planning on building the walls in standard 2x4 construction, 24" on center, with 2 layers of 5/8" drywall with green glue in between them on the outside. Once we lift all 4 walls into place and secure them, we wanted to try to reverse the inside out system for the new ceiling, which just seemed like too much mass to lift into place for a couple guys and a drywall lift. We're going to try to roughly follow the lines of the original ceiling, but the pitch will probably not be as steep so we can have room for collar ties in the original rafters. The interior room will also have 5 or so beams running from the top of each of the long walls to keep them from bowing out from the weight of the ceiling framing. QUESTION #2: Should I install a rafter vent, or even a small ridge vent to maintain ventilation between the walls? I know there's a lot of discussion on here about this issue, but most solutions I've seen seem to involve using a chamber of some sort as part of the HVAC system. I'm hoping to just use a small mini-split system for both heating and cooling inside the room. If I maintain a low level of relative humidity and a moderate temperature inside the main room, do you think the air gap would stay dry enough to prevent condensation? Very confused about this, because I'm determined to keep both walls airtight, seems a shame to punch holes in the roof for a vent, and maybe on the inside walls to allow circulation? Planning on using ultratouch denim for all the interior walls, and then possibly liven up some areas with slat resonators. I'm thinking of leaving the entire mix area behind the monitors & desk absorbent, does that makes sense? Then maybe use some resonators in the "live" area where bands will be playing. Also planning on leaving the floor concrete, and the ceiling drywall with maybe some kind of treatment (cloud, small panels?). Ok, that's where I'm at so far. Hope this wasn't too much info, not super concise but hopefully the idea of what we're doing is sort of clear. I will have photos & sketchup soon, but wanted to at least introduce myself and the project. THANK YOU!!!

We will tell Don you stopped by.

Rod! Man, my brain's having trouble keeping up these days... Photos soon, I promise!!

Him too.

some early photos as promised. more recent ones from after the building was set down and sealed up, plus sketchup coming soon. thanks! back of the garage. straw on the new slab, to keep it from freezing. front of the building. the door in the corner is the entry we're going to use. everything else walled up. pulling one side of the building into place using a truck tow attached to a tree, and grease on the beams. starting to set the building back down.

STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The vapor barrier should NOT be up against the outside wall - it should be installed on the innermost wall surface...... Rod

yikes! thanks, rod. this has been a source of a lot of confusion for us, as the sheathing is old t&g pine. tight but not watertight. we thought if the vapor barrier was against the sheathing, then drywall, then pink insulation, that would prevent the drywall from getting wet from the elements coming through the exterior. if we placed the vapor barrier over the pink insulation, how can we be certain there won't be moisture trapped in with the drywall? thanks! ron

so i talked to my contractor friend who's helping me with this project, and he is very nervous about having the drywall flush against the exterior without some sort of vapor barrier, as the pine siding is definitely not airtight. for the record, our layers from outside - in were going to be: original 1/2" pine t&g siding (80 years old or so) // 4mil plastic (cut to fit between studs) // 5/8" drywall flush against exterior with cleats, backing rod and caulking // r13 pink insulation // air gap // 5/8 drywall // green glue // 5/8 drywall // ultratouch // fabric and/or slot resonators. can anyone advise on this one? we were planning on keep the air gap as airtight as we can, and will have a minisplit heat/cool system in the space which should keep humidity under control. will this plan still work, and if not where would you advise moving the vapor barrier to? isn't it commonplace to have tyvek or other vapor barrier just under the exterior layer of newer buildings? i did try to follow some of the vapor related links in the reference area, but many of them are broken on the canadian website. I also searched the forum for this issue, but couldn't find anything that seemed definitive. if there's a post i missed, please let me know! and again, THANK YOU! ron

hello everybody! i wanted to post some updated photos, some of which show the vapor barrier and drywall mass we've been working on: here's a photo of the existing siding from inside. you can clearly see there are gaps that moisture could get to the drywall from: Anyone with experience with this specific situation, drywall as "beef" on top of older siding? I'd really like to get some clarity on this technique before caulking all of this drywall. Assuming I can move forward with this technique, would you guys see any reason to trim the plastic back before adding backing rod & caulk? if i don't trim it, would you have the backing rod placed touching the stud or the drywall (ie. which side of the plastic)? here are some more general photos of the space as it stands, secured to the new slab, garage and side wall openings walled up. from the doorway from the "back" of the room, facing towards the doorway and a photo showing our new thermal windows, installed right over the existing ancient ones: Thanks again! ron

A moisture barrier is not what you guys are looking for. A high grade ultra UV resistant paintable exterior caulk is! Fix the cracks at the source...not on the inside. A vapor barrier is never used on the outside of a wall. In most places, your town included, a plastic barrier isn't required but if it is used it will go on the inside of the wall framing members then as well.

xSpace wrote:

A moisture barrier is not what you guys are looking for. A high grade ultra UV resistant paintable exterior caulk is! Fix the cracks at the source...not on the inside. A vapor barrier is never used on the outside of a wall. In most places, your town included, a plastic barrier isn't required but if it is used it will go on the inside of the wall framing members then as well.

Thanks, XSpace! Never thought of the exterior caulking. I guess I'm still wrapping my head around it, no pun intended. What would be the difference between moisture proofing via caulking from the outside, and placing a sheet of plastic flush against the drywall? In theory if moisture could get past the backing rod and caulking to the "outside" side of the drywall, wouldn't both techniques trap it? Also note from the photos that i'm cutting the plastic to fit between the studs, so there's not a solid sheet across the entire wall as in typical vapor barriers. Just enough to protect each piece of drywall. 2 contractors I've talked to up here thought the air "gap" between the drywall, barrier and exterior sheathing would be basically non-existent. It's very common for builders to use tyvek or other house wraps up here directly under the exterior sheathing. Would you still consider this the incorrect placement for the climate up here? Any chance of an explanation as to why you & Rod consider this the wrong placement for a vapor barrier? Or could you point me to a thread or article I've missed? Thanks again! Really glad to be able to address the issue before getting much further along. Repectfully, Ron

Definitely need to seal up the siding. If you allow water to get past the siding it is just going to run down the plastic and sit on the bottom plate of your wall. On the other side (Interior) of the plastic you will have condensation during cold weather.

"It's very common for builders to use tyvek or other house wraps up here directly under the exterior sheathing. Would you still consider this the incorrect placement for the climate up here?" It is common procedure in many places. It is common to have an unbroken envelop, that is, a continuous barrier with no breaks what so ever. Placing this up against the exterior siding may divert moisture to the edges of the barrier[directly to the studs] but it isn't going to make anything go away. The wall assembly is what you are dealing with. Contemporary wall design, looking from the outside in, you will have exterior siding, a drain plane[tyvek], insulated sheathing, studs filled with typical kraft paper faced insulation[paper towards the inside of room] and sheetrock. Painting the walls is part of the plan as well. So everything matters. Even if you cannot do it as it should be done, you are shooting yourself in the foot if you place a plastic barrier in the exterior cavity. I know it may not seem like it makes sense, but it does.

isn't it commonplace to have tyvek or other vapor barrier just under the exterior layer of newer buildings?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Tyvek isn't a vapor barrier, as far as I know. It's a moisture barrier, but not an air barrier, if I recall correctly. When I added an extension to my home a few years back, I researched Tyvek and I'm sure I recall that it "breathes", ie, it allows the passage of some air, but not of water. So it doesn't seem correct, to me, to refer to Tyvek as a vapor barrier.

Actually the only thing we have mentioned that is a barrier is the solid sheet plastic. The issue with an exterior wall is that it can get wet from either side. When the rate of moisture entry is greater than the moisture removal, you get moisture related problems. In order for a material to stop water it >has< to stop air. The advantage of Tyvek over something like asphalt saturated felt paper or plastic, for instance, is that it can stop >vapor< and doesn't create such an air tight wrap that sweat develops on the back side of the housewrap effectively trapped, especially if an interior plastic barrier is in place. A dual vapor barrier is to be avoided with the same fervor that a three leaf wall is.

Thanks again for the clarification. So you're suggesting that since we can't effectively have a continuous sheet of tyvek or other "breathable" barrier, the ideal route at this point is to caulk all gaps we can see, and then place the drywall directly against the exterior siding? if we put r13 insulation on top of this "beef" drywall, where do you recommend the vapor barrier actually go (remember we're trying to build an inside-out wall for the floating one). over the r13 on the exterior wall? on the inside of the 2 layers of drywall on the inside wall, which would end up directly underneath the ultratouch insulation indoors? Would plastic be ok in this instance, or would you recommend tyvek or another type of barrier? Really appreciate the advice. Mold is a real concern up here, a couple schools have been shut down and/or demolished because of black mold problems. I definitely want to do this right. Thanks! ron

It's very common for builders to use tyvek or other house wraps up here directly under the exterior sheathing. Would you still consider this the incorrect placement for the climate up here?"

OK - I don't have a lot of time - but let's see if we can't get this done. Building Wraps are not vapor retarders (barriers) they ARE water and air barriers... The intent of a full building wrap is to allow the building to breathe - without having issues with condensation. If (in the colder regions of the world) a vapor barrier is placed on the cold side of a wall or floor - the vapor inside of the building is allowed to pass through the wall - through the insulation - and (upon reaching the colder vapor barrier) then reaches dew point - a which time it will condense, run down the vapor barrier - eventually destroying everything it comes in contact with..... Now - let's picture it the other way around...... The vapor barrier is placed on the warm side of the wall surface - vapor locked inside the building cannot pass through into the wall cavity - BUT - vapor from the outside world WILL pass through INTO the wall cavity.... BUT - ths vapor is cold - and will come into contact with a wall surface which is warm - which means it is physicaly impossible for it to reach dew point to condense. What ever the outside relative humidity is - so it is in the wall cavity. This is what is referred to as a building "breathing". In hot regions of the world - the installation is just the opposite - the vapor retarder is installed on the outside face of the wall assembly.

if we put r13 insulation on top of this "beef" drywall, where do you recommend the vapor barrier actually go (remember we're trying to build an inside-out wall for the floating one). over the r13 on the exterior wall? on the inside of the 2 layers of drywall on the inside wall, which would end up directly underneath the ultratouch insulation indoors? Would plastic be ok in this instance, or would you recommend tyvek or another type of barrier?

As I said - TYVEK is NOT a vapor retarded - and should NEVER be used for that purpose. I would build my wall - install the vapor barrier - then the drywall -and then stand it up backwards - the plastic can only affect high frequencies (relatively speaking) and only you add your insulation and room finishes - it will be all but invisable. Take care, rOD

Thank you, Rod! This clears things up for me tremendously. We are moving forward with removing the plastic from behind the beef drywall, and will use caulking to seal any gaps we can find. We'll also install the vapor barrier where you indicated on the inside wall. I'll add some more photos as we move along. Thanks again Rod & everyone for your help!

Hi Ron, I was thinking about this thread and your build and was wondering how things are going for you now that the weather is beginning to warm up. :-)

hey everybody, so, a quick update. we did take down the plastic that we had up behind the "beef" drywall and replaced it, but before doing so we filled any holes or cracks we saw in the exterior siding with caulk. It was pretty easy to see where light was coming through during the day, especially after blocking the light from the windows. so ... we finished all the walls and are almost done beefing the ceiling. we added 3/8" backing rod around all the pieces, and caulked all the drywall on the 4 walls, added cleats and insulated. all of that in pretty much one week! i used the osb green acoustic caulking. this weekend we plan to start the interior walls. i have cases of green glue, lumber and drywall. I'll take some photos of that process too. thanks again for all the help! ron we wouldn't have gotten much done up here in Maine without this little guy and this little guy, a cheap ipod dock we still need to caulk around the sill, but we're waiting to sweep and clean the floor really well first insulation!

Looking really good, I really like the ceiling. Good to have another guy from Maine on here.

Nice job! looking great. There are a few Mainers on here..... I'll be starting my build this spring (small mix room in a detached garage). JWL

Thanks, fellow Mainers! Yeah, the ceiling is amazing, but alas will be covered in insulation and then a floating ceiling. We're hoping to match the shape of the hip as closely as possible, though, plus we're going to have some beams from across the tops of the 2 longer walls for stability (to keep the floating ceiling from pushing the walls apart), so hopefully it'll retain some of that character. btw, if anybody up here has a line on where i could locate a few 4-6" thick x 16" long birch or other trees to use as those beams, that would be a dream come true for me! I think we'll need 4-5 logs total. otherwise i think we're using rough cut hemlock or something more readily available. More soon!

So, we started construction on the interior floating walls this weekend. 2 layers of 5/8" drywall with green glue between them. Green glue is much runnier than I expected. They suggest cutting a 3/8" opening in the spout, but I'd recommend less than .25" for a little control. We noticed how amazingly dead sounding the drywall was a day after applying the green glue, especially compared to a freshly constructed wall. The new wall still had a little of that drywall "ring", but the wall that had a day for the green glue to set was amazingly solid and dull / dark sounding when we tapped on it. Hope to have all 4 walls done by end of next weekend, and then start on the floating ceiling. Some photos: Sill caulking More soon...

So, we started construction on the interior floating walls ...

Floating walls? How are you going to float them? - Stuart -