Hi All
(have read the Rules, so hopefully this post adheres to them all, please give me a nudge if not and I'll rectify)
I'll break this into a few posts to try make it a tad digestable, could end up being a long first post!
I live in southwest England. 30-something, write and record everything myself at home (for no great reason than I enjoy the process and creating something - plans for world domination abandoned some time ago!). My main musical staple is prog-y high gain kind of stuff, think Tool & Mastodon, but I also spend time recording classical and acoustic guitar. Recording is done via 6-piece acoustic kit with 6 or 7 cymbals, a selection of amps (Marshall, Bad Cat, Axe-FX/Mesa) and bass straight into my recording setup and some virtual amps. Recording setup is Mac, 2 x MOTU 896 and Logic.
A few months ago decided to set about putting a project studio together, refurbishing a separate building connected to my house. The structure itself was in pretty poor state, leaking roof and walls and a lot of standing water inside. The ceiling and all walls (apart from one) are concrete - the one wall which isn't concrete was, well, I'm not sure what. It had a garage door there, the previous owner was told he wasn't allowed to use the structure as a garage (path for emergency services only) and so covered it up, leaving the garage door in place, in a very shoddy manner.
A few shots of the building before I started are shown below.
View from outside (that's my house right behind it - you can also just about see the vent to the left of the door)
View inside, beautiful eh! That 'wall' is what the previous owner erected in front of the garage door. The garage door was left in position, so we had to cut it out.
Below is an aerial view of what's what. I was quite lucky with this building due to the distance to neighbours and the nature of the ground in between the studio and them (soil, hard core, concrete). The room walls either side are a good 12" or so concrete/brick, the wall joining our house is effectively underground, so just one 'bad' wall to sort.
First thing to do was to sort the water ingress - the main culprits being the door and frame, the 'wall' at the end, and the roof. The room was emptied, a new roof laid and thoughts turned to the wall where the garage door was. I was slightly doubtful the structure would ever be 100% waterproof....so, decided on treating the walls and ceiling with a waterproof membrane and then building a room inside the main structure, with the only points of contact being the floor.
The floor was levelled flat with a slight slope toward the window corner of the room. In that corner I drilled a drainage channel to the outside world - so any water which did make it into the structure should run down the treated walls, down the slight slope in the floor and out of the drainage channel. To de-couple the inside room floor from the outer structure (keeping it off that draining water) I laid the Delta MS20 membrane across the whole floor before building the inner shell/room on top of it.
On top of the Delta MS20 I laid 18mm chipboard for the floor of the inner room, then 12mm foam tiles on top of that to add a bit of suspension and dampening. (the foam also makes the place look a bit nicer and is easily moved/removed/cleaned etc).
Regarding the problem wall - after some consideration I decided to leave it there and build another brickwork wall a few inches in from it. The gap between the two is filled with rubble and other debris from the project.
A timber frame was built a few inches in from the (treated) walls of the building structure. Same was done for the ceiling, with the ceiling joists supported by the frame making up the walls. Gaps in the wooden frame were packed with Rockwool RWA45, and then a layer of 12.5mm plasterboard fixed to the wooden frame.
At this point we had the shell of the inner room built such that the exterior-facing surface of the Rockwool slabs are flush with the wooden frame they sit in, and this flush surface sitting away from the walls and ceiling of the building itself.
The room now looked as per this pics below. The door had yet to be tackled - so, out came the existing door and frame (a useless UPVC contraption) and in went one of these:
http://www.doorcaresouthwest.co.uk/gall ... mouth.html
The sill under the door was replaced, a few days of torrential rain followed and a small leak discovered, the leak was patched and further rain tells me it's now as it should be. This door is a heavy, secure thing but probably doesn't do wonders for soundproofing.
So, inside of this door I've installed another door, as part of the frame of the inner room. This door consists of two fire rated doors fixed together with an approx. 1 inch gap between them. I'm taking the door off soon and filling the gap with dry sand, making it thick and heavy. I've no pictures of the doors as yet, will get some this week.
So, with doors on it was time to get some kit in there and test construction so far. I was in such a position that it wouldn't be any great trouble to remove panels, make some changes etc. At this point I also had some making good to do in the area between the inner and outer doors - so it was a chance for me to make some noise, do some work, make more noise and judge the impact of the work.
At this stage I'll admit I've never been overly technical in terms of volume measuring, SPL testing etc. Perhaps with this sort of project I've been foolish in not getting into that - so, for sure I'd take some advice on what should have been done and when. Looking at the project beforehand and assessing the ground between the room and the neighbours I was 100% convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the room with a decent level of treatment and suspension in the floor would make whatever's going on inside inaudible from the neighbours' houses. Sure enough, we've tested it recently with the wife heading into the neighbours and me playing the kit way harder than I'd normally hit, and it can't be heard. The slight exception is if it's late at night and my wife is in either our kitchen or our bedroom (above the kitchen) and you can just about hear that something's going on, though it's so indistinct it's unclear whether it's a drum kit or just someone, somewhere playing a stereo. This is late at night, later than I'd play drums (and, again, tested with me hammering way harder than I play) and making a specific effort to listen out for any noise. Same 'tests' were done with my monitors in place and low frequency cranked, again with no issues.
When walking past the room itself outside you can tell there's music going on inside it.....but it's at a level you can comfortably have a conversation at normal volume with someone, and can't be heard more than 20ft or so away. I was well aware that to 100% contain the sound would be a different project altogether, not something I wanted to get into or felt was necessary.
The above 'scientific tests' were also done without the area between the two doors fully treated, without the sand in the inner door and also without acoustic strips run inside the door frames (still some wiring to do for alarm system, so completing that before finishing off). Much of that noise you can hear when walking past (and from our bedroom/kitchen at night) is from the area of the doors, which has yet to be finished off. It's acceptable as-is, but will get better.
So, at this stage I've done everything I'll ever do in the room music-wise (drums, bass and guitars), generally at a louder volume I'll actually do it at long term and the neighbours were unaware such testing was going on..... so I'm considering the job successful so far.
But, onto the next post for my current problem and a question or two as to what I'm going to do about it....
I had one of the lights off recently for some work, noticed the light fitting had some water in it. Stuck finger into hole the light cable was using and noticed the Rockwool in the ceiling cavity was wet. So, turned distribution board off, isolated the light and removed it, dropped the ceiling panel and Rockwool slab down. This is what I was greeted with:
Condensation everywhere! Not just isolated to this area either, seems to be all over the ceiling. Whether it's on the walls or not I don't know.... I guess so.....but, if so, it's draining down the walls, onto the sloped floor and out of the draining channel. At the minute my priority is the ceiling as the condensation is wetting the Rockwool, which in turn clearly has the potential to drip into the lights.
I was hoping the two vents by the door and the window would create enough air movement in the gap between building and inner room to mitigate the issue, but clearly I was very wrong there.
So, what to do about it? I was thinking of something along the lines of an extraction fan at one of the vent positions, pulling air through the gap between rooms. I stumbled across this last night, thinking the DryVent/Vapour Vent pairing might be an option?
http://www.rhldirect.com/products-and-solutions/
Another option I thought about: just above the inner door I installed some wooden panels to temporarily block up the gaps between the door/inner room frame and the outer structure. I decided to take off the panel above the door to create some air movement and see if it helps. When I took the panel off I noted the Rockwool above the door had been packed all the way to the ceiling of the main building structure. The area where the Rockwool was packed as such is bone dry. The pic below is the view in a window-direction of the ceiling void just above the inner door. You can clearly see where the drips of condensation start - this is just after the area of Rockwool-all-the-way-to-the-ceiling stops. So, I was wondering about getting the ceiling void completely dry and then packing the whole area with Rockwool. Getting the area dry then packing it out would stop the warm air getting to the cold ceiling surface to condense - no? I appreciate putting the Rockwool in there now isn't a great idea as it'd get wet - but, if I properly dried the area first and installed new, dry RWA45? It doesn't stop any condensation on the walls - but since that would all drain away without touching the inner room I'm not overly concerned (unless you advise me I need to be I suppose!)
So that's the story so far! Firstly, congrats if you've made it this far......sorry for the lengthy intro.
Secondly - any advice as to what to do about the condensation between the two 'rooms' would be much appreciated. For info, there is no current HVAC for either the inner or outer structures, just the two vents either side of the main building.
Am at home for a while (baby due 2 weeks today so no business trips planned!) and camera at the ready - happy to go grab any more pics if it helps.
Thanks, Q.
Hi Quinny, and welcome!
Brien is the guy to answer your condensation question, but I'll bet that he'll have something to say about vapor barriers! :)
One thing I did notice in your first post:
so, decided on treating the walls and ceiling with a waterproof membrane
I hope you mean that you did that on the OUTSIDE of the walls and ceiling? In other words, that you dug down the earth outside the walls, installed drains at the base, then sealed and insulated the outer surface of the walls? And that you sealed the top surface (outside surface, the one facing the sky) of your roof?
I'm taking the door off soon and filling the gap with dry sand, making it thick and heavy.
careful with that! You'll have a head of 2m of sand, all trying to force its way out at the bottom... that's a lot of pressure down there! :shock: If that were me, I'd put in something like MDF, OSB or even drywall. Sand is good, acoustically, but has other properties that aren't so good: it acts more like a fluid than a solid, for example: it flows down slopes, and builds pressure sideways when stacked inside things...
To my not-so-valid point of view, that condensation looks like something way beyond the ability of a couple of small vents and a bathroom fan to control. I'd be thinking of a proper HVAC system, professionally dimensioned to deal with that amount of moisture in the air. But (once again) to my way of thinking, so much moisture in such a small space points to your "seal-the-walls-and-ceiling-membrane" plan not doing what you thought it would do: that moisture is coming from somewhere, and my guess is that it is coming through the structure somewhere that you can't see.
But once again, Brien (xSpace) is the guy to tell you about that, what you did wrong, and how to fix. Although I have a feeling you might not like what he has to say about how to fix it...
A final question: Are you going to put any proper acoustic treatment in there? That room could probably be made to sound quite good for recording, if treated a bit.
- Stuart -
Hi Stuart. :)
Spoke with a builder today and he mentioned something about vapour barriers. He's coming over at the weekend to have a chat about some options.
Did I treat the outside of the building? Apart from a new roof and sealing on top, no - the exterior of the internal walls were left as they are. When the new roof was done I let the room sit as it was for a couple of months to see whether any water was coming in - apart from the wall at the end there was none. The treatment of the inside of the interior walls was a just-in-case measure....if any water leaked in from outside it wouldn't get past that barrier. In hindsight, I wonder if that coating is just a super-efficient place for warm air to condense.
I take your point about the sand. I discussed this with a builder and he said it'd be OK, but I should stick some strengthening around the hinges (basically more hinges I think). I also got the idea from a studio in my town I was in recently - heading back there to audition some drum mics on Monday so I'll double check what he did to address the weight (his door is HEAVY!) I'll bear your points in mind and discuss with the guy coming round too.
Acoustic treatment? Yes indeed! Not just yet though - I wanted to get the room finished construction-wise and and let it sit for a while to see if any teething problems cropped up (thinking it'd be less pain to re-work if the room wasn't decorated and treated acoustically). I'm aiming to use it just for practice/writing for a while, so no rush with the acoustics.......but yes, looks like a good job it was left as is for a while as some additional work for HVAC seems to be rearing its head. Certainly the plan is to record in there in the not-too-distant, so acoustic treatment is very much an issue for the future.
Looking forward to the bad news from Brien....! :cry::mrgreen:
Thanks, Q.
A word of caution about suggestions of ventilation that your builder might offer: any hole you cut in what you have already done can drastically reduce the excellent isolation you have achieved. If air can get in and out, then so can sound. So all ventilation plans will need to include proper acoustical silencers in-line. You can buy them, or you can build them yourself, much cheaper and much better!
The same applies to any HVAC solution that you might consider: if you plan to record in there, air movement and mechanical HVAC noise picked up by your mics could be a big problem. Use the "search" feature of the forum to look for ways of dealing with this, or buy Rod Gervais's excellent book "Home Recoding Studio: Build it like the pros". That has a large detailed section on HVAC, potential issues, solutions, calculations, etc. (The same book also has a section on how to build doors correctly, including Rod's famous "superdoor": It sounds lie you need one of those!)
One other thing you should be aware of: excess humidity inside your studio will lead to problems with your instruments, as well as things like fungus inside the walls, floor, ceiling etc. Musical instruments do not like high humidity, and do not like changes in humidity. I'm sure you don't want the shells and skins on your drum kit warping over time! Nor your sticks, or other instruments you happen to have in there. You need to keep a constant level inside your room, always, so solving this problem is a biggie! (You probably already knew that, but it does no harm to remind you!)
- Stuart -
My guitars (my main instrument) remain in the house, room temperature and always 45-55% humidity - controlled via portable humidifiers/dehumidifiers. Would like to get the music room the same. :)
Slight update. Have taken a couple of panels of the ceiling down over the weekend and put a dehumidifer in the room. The room itself is reasonably stable around 55% RH, with the ceiling void being 65-70%. Temperature in the ceiling void is approx. 4 degrees C less than the main rom, although this is with the ceiling panels down and inner room air entering the ceiling void - I suspect the temp difference is greater with the ceiling fully up. Will leave the ceiling down a while whilst working out the next move. I noted the condensation is worse in the corner of the room which is furthest away from the two vents in the outer structure, it's relatively dry elsewhere in the room.
I'll let the dehumidifier sit for a few days and see what's what. In the meantime any other thoughts on solutions would be appreciated - at the very least I'm going to pick up a unit from RHL to reduce the moisture content in the ceiling void and see if that helps. Also going to pick up another hygrometer/thermometer.....having a continuous view of RH/temp outdoors, in the ceiling void and in the main room would be useful.
Q.
My first question Quinny is what is the time frame from when you didn't notice until you DID notice the condensation on the roof?
Typically a garage is not going to be treated like an interior living area, E.G. that the concrete slab does not have visqueen layer underneath it which is crucial to moisture control.
So I wonder to myself, "yea, that is a butt load of condensation, and we all know that this is not a leak, it is moisture that is actually inside this room trying to get out." So I would have to look at the floor slab to determine if there is an issue there first.
Obviously, these rooms we build generate, with the help of electronics and the dense environment, heat and heat has moisture. Like you said, from the warm to the cold side, that is the way condensation forms once it hits a barrier.
A garage like your has a big door for a reason...especially since the roof is unsealed and becomes part of the interior environment...but that reason is that if this big door, which is a big "hole" is used at least once a day, then the air inside couples with the air outside, quickly, and the moisture elements are reduced to an acceptable level.
Venting the roof would be the way to handle it, but you could lose your isolation...some well designed baffles, might work...who knows :) Of course this assumes that the moisture is not in part or wholly due to the concrete floor/base, and that no other part of the structure, walls, windows, etc, are not at some part responsible for this condensation.
Simple answer...you need constant air flow, weather that is by an HVAC unit or a dehumidifier...you need something, and you will need it for as long as you stay in that room.
Based on what I have seen in your pix, there is probably something more going on than I can determine from looking at a few pix on the Internet.
Thanks Brien. :)
OK - I'm looking into some airflow solutions.......but, whilst I'm doing that, I think removing a few wall and floor panels to see if there's anything going on behind/underneath them might be an idea. It's a lot of condensation, surely.....but whether it's proportionate to the lights and max. of 2 devices (pre and power amp) I've had on in there thus far I don't know. A look behind some more panels might be revealing and will be good to rule those areas out if not, so will get on with that this week.
Also got another hygro/thermometer on the way today, so will be able to build a picture of the state of each area (external air, ceiling void, the room itself). Will make some changes with fans, humidifier, panels up and down etc. and see if I spot any patterns.
Re: the time frame.... I guess it was something like 3 months between ceiling going up and noticing the problem. For the first couple of weeks there was nothing in there but drums, followed eventually by my amps. Whether this problem has been there since day 1 (the lights might be enough to cause it?) or what I don't know. But, with the ceiling down currently I can put it back together as if starting over and monitor how it progresses. This weekend I'll be cutting up some of the ceiling panels and making a couple of easy access hatches into the ceiling void, will help me keep an eye on things.
Q.
Hi all - bit of an update...
Had a dehumidifier in there the last few days - with a couple of ceiling tiles down the room is kept at around 60% and 15 degrees C. This is with the outside generally being 70-75% and 9 degrees C or thereabouts. Obviously the thing isn't air-tight so I think 60% is about as good as it's going to get until the weather changes.
With the vents blocked or unblocked, not much difference.
Took a few wall tiles off, all dry behind them. Floor looks dry too, but need to spend some time this weekend chopping up the timber frame to get a good area of floor up for a look.
Put the ceiling tiles back up and have a temperature sensor in the ceiling void. Things are still settling down out there, but temp difference between the room and the ceiling void was 6 degrees C and growing slowly when I left. I'll keep checking it every couple of hours, but I want to be sure that with the vents either blocked or unblocked the condensation will start to return (I'd like to see how quickly this happens).
So, if I'm right (please let me know if you think otherwise) I have 2 potential issues......
1. Moving the air from/around the void - this would stop it hanging around the void long enough to condense on the ceiling, right? I'm thinking extraction fan on one of the vents or, as Brien says, leave both vents there vent the roof. Also have someone coming to advise on vapour barriers this weekend, got some swotting up to do on them in the meantime.
.
2. Keeping the humidity in the room 45-55% when the ceiling and walls are back on. I'm not too concerned about this as my humidifier will do the job easily with the walls and ceiling back in place (path to outside atmosphere further obstructed).
What do you guys reckon - thinking along the right lines or barking up wrong trees altogether?
Thanks, Q.
"Floor looks dry too, but need to spend some time this weekend chopping up the timber frame to get a good area of floor up for a look."
Stop right there. If the issue is the floor or even in part, the moisture should migrate upwards, you will see it on the face of the wood, the discoloration...do not cut up a floor yet.
In reference to a Vapor Barrier...trust me, you do not want to get another one, you already have one or the condensation would not have STOPPED at the potential point of exit.
What you require is a breath of air in this building at the upper roof area.
If it were possible to frame a ceiling below the existing roof, and vent the space in this newly created cavity to allow for the extraction of moisture, is this at all possible?
Hi Brien
I've had a good look around the walls and no moisture present on the timber frame anywhere. With the wall panels removed though, the timber frame sits on top of my floor so I'd need to remove some frame sections to get floor boards and Delta membrane up for a look at the floor. However, the space sat for a few months with no Delta/flooring on top of the concrete floor after we levelled the concrete floor itself. There's never been any issue with water coming from the floor, always been dry.....so, with no signs of moisture at all on the lower regions of the frame I'm feeling happy enough not to be taking the floor up for inspection (though packed all the musical kit away last night so now's as good an opportunity as I'll get, so may consider over the weekend).
Regarding your final comment - yes, that's possible, no problem at all if that's what needs to happen. However, can I ask you for a little clarification please? The building itself has the two vents, each one about halfway up the wall and a couple of feet below the ceiling void - as such they're not ideally placed to affect the ceiling void (they're also passive so I suspect don't do much):
I'm thinking my options are to either replace one of the two vents with an extraction unit, or to install an extraction unit at the same height as the ceiling void (or, as you say, a unit onto the roof itself). My questions are:
1. When you say 'frame a new ceiling' what do you mean exactly? Do you mean putting another level of something across the top of the current joist/RWA45 combo, shown below as the dotted green line? If so, why? And, would this need to extend right to the (concrete) walls or still leaving a gap?
2. I could put an extractor at one of the current vents, pulling air from the other vent to the extractor. However, I'm thinking that may cause more air movement around the walls than the ceiling void given their positions, so am wondering how effective it'd be for the ceiling void.
3. Assuming an extraction unit on roof or ceiling void level - I wonder if I should block the vent on the same side of the room as the extraction unit. I'm thinking the extraction unit would be trying to create a vacuum, with the only air input being the vent on the other side of the building - this would force air movement right across the structure? And with the extraction unit being at ceiling void height this would mean the air in the ceiling void would constantly be on the move?
I could block put an extractor at one of the current vents, pulling air from the other vent to the extractor. However, I'm thinking that may cause more air movement around the walls than the ceiling void given their positions, so am wondering how effective it'd be for the ceiling void.
What about adding some flexible duct to the inside of the vents in order to route the air flow up and through the void?
Ah yes, thanks Brian, good idea..... instead of cutting a new hole elsewhere for the extractor I could install to one of the current holes and run duct to the ceiling void. Keeps the current acoustic/isolation achievements pretty much in check too.
Thanks! :)
"What about adding some flexible duct to the inside of the vents in order to route the air flow up and through the void?"
You open a direct path from the upper level, a path that water will flow downward into...so that is not an option.
A few things to consider, convection loss is governed by math.
When calculating the amount of ventilation needed, the generally accepted formula is 1/300, or one square foot of ventilation per 300 square feet of attic floor. For low-slope roofs, this formula is often doubled to a 1/150 ratio, this would be yours. So while it is assumed that a simple thing like convection is simple, it is not.
Your room, as it looks to me, is a hybrid in that while it attempts to be a room in a room, meaning it has decoupled wall assemblies, it does not have a decoupled ceiling assembly. is this correct?
The answer not with standing, a simple vent can only do so much. Let us assume it is hot as heck outdoors and hot as heck in doors? How does it work then?
Well, it couples the air. That means that whichever is the heavier of the two, then that is the barometer, for lack of a better word, that establishes the dominant temperature between the two. Now if it is warmer outside than it is inside, that means you get more moisture on the interior side of this structure.
Ditto on if it is colder outside than on the inside. Remember you brought up "warm side to the cold side""? This was just a catch phrase that you may have picked up, but it is the difference between a healthy structure and an ailing on, of which I would categorize yours.
To move further along:
http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/i ... opic=11680
"When the sun heats a roof, it's primarily the sun's radiant energy that makes the roof hot. A large portion of this heat travels by conduction through the roofing materials to the attic side of the roof. The hot roof material then radiates its gained heat energy onto the cooler attic surfaces..."
This is still "warm side to the cold side" and basically this structure in the current state is all roof.
I am not completely convinced that there are not multiple issues with the walls of this structure based on the previous pictures. I find it difficult to believe that building a wall over a garage door would make it rot to that severity. And thinking that it all came from the roof would not be my last consideration.
And here is why.
I have been involved in fire restoration of residential structures and apartment dwellings. Also both of those as it pertains to water damage. Here is what I have learned from both and with the help of those involved.
Fire and water leave a definite footprint. You can look, if you have a firsthand opportunity, and with some time and past history, define where either of the two enter the building.