Samuel Studios - construction thread

Option 2 for sure. 8) Peace Tom

NEED HELP!!! So I've got the first layer almost finished. Which is outside wall | osb | insulation There will be an gap between this wall and the seperated room inside. All the contractors that are visiting me are saying I NEED an airgap from the outside to be between the walls, this for the condensation that will be there! When explaining them they can't do it because of the fact that taken care of these wall and putting a hole in it again is useless. So please help me on this one, if anybody has any experience on this. I was thinking of creating a vent box that takes care of it..but I need help!

is there a vapor barrier/retarder applied on the exterior? if not, then you might have to ventilate to allow drainage which might not be solved easily with a box. do you have any details from the contractors about what specifically they are proposing to do to provide the ventilation?

There is no vapor barrier/retarder. They just want to put vents in the wall. These are about 10x6cm they say 1 is enough.. Ps if i handle quick enough i might be able to still add a avpor barrier between the osb and insulation..? Or would that he not good enough? Just need to try and find the proper foil here in holland.. Which will be the hardest part

i'm just trying to understand why they think the wall needs venting versus just the roof. is there some actual moisture permeability issue or is it a building code concern?

The construction is from wood, the roof is covered with "asphalt" shingles. When there will be condensation between the 2 wall it needs to vent in order to get rid of it. Now in the summer the heat will dry it up, but in the winter apparently it needs venting, atleast that's what the contractors keep telling me. Since it apparently is a complete wood construction, the say it's more likely to have moisture permeability than having a brick structure. This is all very vague to me, since it offcourse can ruin everything your trying to achieve completely by making vents in the wall.

Tough question. If there is no air cavity in the roof, no open space between the ceiling and the exterior sheathing/shingles I might be inclined to install venting for the roof, assuming that the roof framing and the insulation involved is typical. But that would be my procedure and there is some support that even that isn't required. I would vent it more to keep the sheathing from heating up and remove the potential warping of the sheathing. Venting a wall to allow condensation to be extracted makes no sense to me. Condensation is the cumulative residue from vapor, and that exists everywhere. In your climate, thinking on the run here, I would think that placing an opening in an exterior wall would >invite< condensation/moisture which is not what you want to achieve. Especially if you have a vapor diffusion retarder (VDR), since the placement of that would be on the inside of the interior wall directly behind the wall sheathing/sheetrock. But if you do not have one (a VDR commonly referred to as a vapor barrier), that is not an issue. But it does mean that if someone puts a hole in your wall, they should have a working example of what they did, why they did it and how it will be beneficial to you and NOT be the potential problem that I am thinking it could very well be.

Well guys, thanks very much for the input! I have solved the "ventilation" issue now, and should all be no problem anymore. So thanks for sharing your knowledge! Anyway, have been really busy last week, and made (what I feel) great progress! I'm not there yet offcourse but it's going somewhere now. I got a call from 2 of my uncles (both live in the West of Holland and me in the North East) asking me if I wanted any help..so offcourse I accepted their offer. One of them actually IS a carpenter, so that came out nice...and saved me costs on hiring local contractors for some things I couldn't do myself due to time restraints. Don't worry about the walls, it wasn't caulked on the sidewalls yet, that's why the isolation panels aren't on yet, I first needed to get it caulked, which has been done now, but I forgot to take a photo.. Finished sizes: Live room: 3.30 meter x 4.20 meter ( height will be from 2.20 meter running up to 2.70 meter ) Control room: 2,5 meter x 3,8 meter Storage: 2,50 meter x 1 meter

"I have solved the "ventilation" issue now, and should all be no problem anymore." Would you be willing to explain in detail what you did...so we might all get some insight into how or why things work in your country in this respect, especially if it[wall venting] ever comes up again?

xSpace wrote:

"I have solved the "ventilation" issue now, and should all be no problem anymore." Would you be willing to explain in detail what you did...so we might all get some insight into how or why things work in your country in this respect, especially if it[wall venting] ever comes up again?

Sure, because I was so much against this I had to think of a way to work with it. The closet will hold a small fan + tubing that has an in and out duct between the inner and outerlayer. Both ends will hold a "vent-box".. The fan will be connected to a timer. This is purely an improvisation because I apparently HAD to deal with it. When I get home tonight I'll make a quick drawning of this idea.

Last saturday we've finished the framing for the walls. After that we started with the ceiling, it's coming together nicely. I've got 5 63x160mm beams. These are spaced so that every MDF sheet has it's outside and exact middle attached to the beams. In between that spacing we have the regular 40x90cm, which is also supported crosswise from above. It's still a work in progress, but it's slowly getting there. Once we finish that up we can start with the electricity.

Created the boxes for the electrics tonight....maybe not really an wow factor, but it needed to happen. Tomorrow I'll be getting all the wires through it, and doing last work on the ceilings' framing. p.s. boxes still need caulking!

Worked hard this weekend, first batch of electric hoses have been inserted, and finished work on the ceiling.

I need to get the spot lights in the ceiling. To make sure there's not to much leakage I want to build 20x20 cm boxes. Only thing I'm worried about is that the lights heat up to much. Does anyone know anything about this and can possibly share their knowledge on this? Thanks, Geert

Here's my silencer design. I bought a 100mm fan, incl isolated flex tube. Now just need to get the silencers underway. It all will be filled with 50mm 50kg/m3 insulation. Feel free to put feedback on it.

Kept myself busy the last 2 days working on ventilation / HVAC en lights. Since we do not live in an environment where it's +30 degrees (celcius) more than 2 or 3 weeks a year, and our average temprature is around 22/23 during the summer I will not use an Airco to cool air. Tho I will keep the option to always install one if that's needed! I do however need ventilation. First I've calculated the tracking room. I need 370m2 per hour to refresh in it's worst condition. 3 guitar amps, 5 people, and monitoring. However the occassion that 5 people will be in that specific room is very small, most bands to like to track things seperate still. I will buy and Solar & Palau MIXVENT 350/125. This will refresh 350m2 per hour. The diameter of this FAN is 125mm, tho I will use the included "converter piece" to change it to 100 mm. Everything will be done with isolated flex duct. It's possible to switch from 150 to 350 m2 fresh air with this fan. For the outgoing I'm working on the basis of (active - passive). This means the air is being pressed out. For the control room I need 500m2 fresh air per hour. So I'm looking for a 125mm or 100m fan that can take that load. Or maybe I will do a test run with the 350/125 to see if that gives me enough plessure while working there. Heating will be done with the MIXVENT HEATING. This one fits exactly on the MIXVENT 350/125 and will convert the air into warm air. Only thing I'm not sure of is if I need to add an extra silencer at the walls where the outside vents are located. If anyone can fill me in on that if needed, that would be great. I've taken the standard silencer design, made sure that my air outtake is 2x the surface of the tubing. Tubing cutthrough surface is 80 cm/2 and the vent in the tracking room is 169 cm2. Anyhow, pics are attached. I'm still a complete n00b ( <- modern internet language ftw) at this, but I'm think I've got the concept figure out. Electrics. Fairly easy, using 6 spots in the tracking room and 4 in the control room. Boxes will be 20x20cm (as mentioned 2 posts previous), spots will be fitted with LED lights so do not have to worry about it heating up.

Was busy a whole day with 4 silencers, and 10 lightboxes. 98 pieces in total. I was lucky enough to be able and use a friends panelsaw, which saved me a lot of time. If I would've done this by myself, it probally woud've taken me a day, and wouldn't have got it as exact as they are now.

Nice work Funky ! Looking forward to see your progress

You've made some SERIOUS progress! Congrats :yahoo: and keep it up! phybeau

Nice work Geert Things are coming along nicely Peace Tom

Didn't even noticed I had replies! Thanks guys. It's indeed coming along nicely. Making good progress. Allready fixed about 70% of the electric wiring. Tomorrow I start putting isolation in the framing. Also a big thanks to Glenn who's been a big help to me. You'll see soon enough why :D And today I had another amazing surprise (after Glenn allready helping me out a lot!). Was at family today and he gave me 13.5 square meters of high quality natural stone tiles. These will fit really nice on the terras in front of the studio... this was luck since the worth new probally is around 1000 euros :yahoo:

Update. Got a lot of the insulation done yesterday, it was actually more work than I expected. But I eventually got to the point for what I aimed to do. Als moved the gypsum boards so I have space to finish framing on my control room and closet. That's my target for this week actually. Attached is also the control room plan, since I was struggling with the small (but cozy) space for the control room Glenn helped me out on that. I'm actually really happy with the progress, and it seems it's getting better and better each step. Hopefully in 2 months I can put all my stuff in there. Ceiling construction

Not much updates currently here on the forum, but the build is progressing very nice! Will get pic updates on here in the coming week. Tonight I allready start putting a first layer of gypsum board in the control room!

Funky construction is looking great! :wink: I envy your woodwork skills :) Sincerely, Useg DIaz-Granados

In need of help. I need liner for my silencer. "duct-liner" is something not available in europe, or atleast I can't find it. I'm actually just thinking of filling it with 50mm glasswool, and cover it in plastic so the particals won't get in the airflow. But with that option it's not really "fire-safe". HELP! :| @ Useg - Thanks man, I haven't been on this work for long. I just started building en constructing for myself about 2 years ago, it's amazing what you can learn once you just do it!