Dan F's One-Room Garage Studio

Okay, and here's how you test it: Close the door, engage that exhaust engine to suck out some air and wait... When you finally pass out, you'll be sure to add another engine to provide some fresh air ;) But it could work, providing there's enough open space where air can get sucked in when the room's undercompressed. Please let us know the results. all the best, ro

Ro wrote:

Close the door, engage that exhaust engine to suck out some air and wait... When you finally pass out, you'll be sure to add another engine to provide some fresh air ;)

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

oh you guys are too funny. on another note, i had finished up my ceiling framing yesterday, or so i thought. i put up my first piece of gypsum on the ceiling, and finally the realization came over me that i had more work to do. being mildly brain-damaged that i am, due to improper ventilation most likely, i am only just beginning to realize that gypsum needs to be attached to solid wood AROUND ITS ENTIRE PERIMETER. you really can't just edges floating in space and then try to caulk between those edges and some adjacent member. i wish i had taken a picture of this, but if you look at my first sheetrock layer on the ceiling you can see right through up to the roof on the sides. i had been puzzling over how to fill this gap, and thought i could probably get away with careful backing rod and caulking. then the second layer would be easy since the gap would be against "solid" backing material. but it dawned on me finally that this is not good soundproofing procedure. so what i need to do is probably cut a million little 2x4 cleats and put them along the tops of my 2x6 (old joists) to provide backing for the outer leaf gyspum. so that will take another bunch of hours :evil: maybe this early sketch will show what i mean (i'm not planning to add as many layers of gypsum at this point) ... if you can imagine what this sketch looks like along the z-axis (going INTO the sketch) you can see that there is no way to attach the LONG edges of the drywall to the 2x6s.

Why not do what I did? My first layer of "beef" is an OSB panel, which is glued and cleated into place. Then I drove screws (or nails on one layer) into the OSB. The final layer of beef was attached with longer screws were diagonally driven into the cleat and the joists... like this --Imagine "laundry room" being your upper leaf. In my case I didn't not use the last cleat over the top. You'd probably have to, though, since gravity would be working to pry the beef down (whereas in my case, being walls, there's less of that going on). And obviously, all the gaps along the edges were filled with acoustic sealant -- lots of it (five cases! That's because I didn't know the wonders of backing rod at that point :roll:)... --Keith :mrgreen:

:roll: Keith, you might be my saviour concerning drawings.. I see u use Visio2003, so do I. I've been searching for the "isolation" shapes. Could you help me out here? (and all other concerning shapes for that matter..)

Keith the problem is I'm not beefing up against a laundry room or exterior siding, i'm "beefing up" against air. so those 1/4 or 3/8 inch gaps between the first layer of sheetrock and the studs -- you can see right through that into the attic. so that's no good. here's a sketch to illustrate the problem. the earlier sketch is deceptive, because the "new joists" obscure the problem ...

Hey Dan Hope you don't mind me asking this on your thread, but it has to do with the ventilation you, Ro and Keith were discussing. I'm planning on using an ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilator...which I haven't purchased yet) which I guess you could say is the sister to the HRV. In my area we have fairly cold winters (sometimes down to below zero although not too bad in the last couple of years) so from my understanding an ERV would probably be better for me. (Ya'll live in Cali' where the the weather is as fine as the girls on the beach...is that true???) 8) Right now, I've got 1 "last shot" to make ANY "slight" corrections to my HVAC system. I put a fresh air line in and an exhaust line out for my ERV before I sealed up the ceiling (where the ERV duct is travelling) My plan was to tie my fresh air line from my ERV into my existing HVAC system. This line will feed fresh air into the entire basement. I tied two Return feeds (for my Control room and my vocal booth) into my main air handler return. (By the way, I had an HVAC guy to come over and when we tried out the system with the returns I noticed it had "pull" on it to draw air from each room, but not as much as I "thought" it should have...Heck, it might have been enough anyway, but I'm not "really" sure to be honest! Anyway, he showed me a little trick by partially covering up the main return grill in my hallway. Man-O-Man!!...you wouldn't believe how STRONG the air "pull" got in each room when I did that! I may have to use this idea to "balance out" the pressure for the rooms to end up with a slightly positive pressure) I was reading where you were talking about "air changes per hour"...something I've read about but don't quite understand. I'm wondering, (depending on what this is all about) if by tying into my WHOLE HVAC system with my ERV would I will get less efficency from my ERV unit compared to running the fresh air in and the exhaust air out directly to each room. Could you tell me exactly what the "air changes per hour" means? Also, do any of you know of anyone who's ACTUALLY used an HRV or ERV and how well they worked? Sorry to "hijack" here Dan...

Hi Stan, Air changes per hour is means how many times all the air in the room is replaced in an hour. it could be more or less than 1 time per hour ... Probably a better person to ask about this is Sharward, since he is using a HRV and undoubtedly has done more research on this than i have. I don't know anything at all about tying into an existing HVAC system. This is somewhere where you really need an expert in my opinion. Because heaters generate carbon monoxide so if you screw up that can have serious consequences. Conceivably you could end up somehow feeding CO into your room and die. that's why i'm keeping it simple ... air in from outside, air back out to outside and a fan to move the air ... yep i'm lucky to live in an area where this is somewhat practical. not sure what will happen with the cold air in winter, i imagine it might get pretty cold in the studio but oh well, i can use a space heater and dress warm.

by the way i got my fan yesterday ... here it is, ain't it cute? a boy, obviously ... funny, it doesn't feel like $200 ... but i guess these things take some serious engineering chops to make. it's like all cumputer desinged & sh*t ... it IS powdercoated hehe ... and it's made in germany, which i guess still pays actual wages. and there is an arrow showing which way the air goes, which is nice.

nice stuff 'innit?! 8) A volt regulater for them machine(s) is about 35 buckaroons here in Europe btw.

Savior? :shock: Wow, I'm flattered -- but surely not worthy of such a title! ;) Shapes? Uh, I just made 'em up... :roll: --Keith :mrgreen:

you did?? I see many images using the same iso shape thingies. I bet you got it somewhere.. that pink fluffy stuff shape. but uhrm, could you send me a copy then?

Yup... Made it. I made one "arc," duplicated and flipped it, and duplicate it a bunch of times, then grouped them so that I can stretch and shrink it as needed. Where I need lots of them, I duplicate the group. --Keith :mrgreen:

hmm, ok. I thought maybe there was a set of those available. Just made one myself... thanx keith!

You're welcome, Ro! And now, back to our regularly scheduled Dan Fitzpatrick garage studio build diary! :D --Keith :mrgreen:

Dan, I got these second hand from my friend who's an HVAC engineer for profession. Those were saved from a building that was sold recently. Still in good condition tho. He's gonna clean'm for me too :)

sweet ... saved a few bucks there huh? :D

a little bit of progress. decided the cheapest and most reasonable solution to my drywall backing problem was to get some OSB sheets and rip them into about 6 inch strips, then cut them to size. so that meant removing the seats from the minivan, which meant a trip to the dump since i told myself, the next time i take the seats out to get 4x8 sheets i'm going to the dump. so i got my 4x8 sheets and got enough ripped to do the backing. i removed the one narrow bit of inadequately backed drywall beef, did the backing on it (extra complicated near the wall since the blocking was in the way). and put the drywall back in place. the good news is that doing the backing is not as bad as i had thought, i can use nails and i have decent room to swing the hammer for the most part. and the 6 inch strips of OSB are JUST narrow enough to be cut by my chopsaw (phew -- should have checked that first). one thing that was cool was i finally got smart enough to get a holster for my cordless drill. this, after leaving it on the top of my ladder, moving the ladder and dropping the drill on the floor, breaking a brand new bit-holder thingy. so that has made me more efficient. and then i found some more things to put screws and nails in so i don't have to change the contents of my measly two pouches in my tool belt as much. the other thing was that i think i have figured out a way to put up the drywall beef on my own, which is to use nails to hold it up, which was suggested sort of in Rod's book. But i just used the idea to temporarily hold the drywall up so i can screw it in. you can nail nails in fairly lightly, slide the drywall in on top of them, and it will hold well enough, and then you can pull the nails out by hand with a bit of wiggling. of course, when i get to the inner leaf ceiling, i'll be borrowing Keith's, i mean stick's, drywall lifter :lol: :lol: (pretty please?)

Dan, I always really appreciate your posts because there's always something to learn! :-) I'll definitely be getting a holster for my cordless drill when I start my framing. But first, I have to get a cordless drill! :lol: I actually do have one, but it's really lightweight and only good for small tasks. Attached below is a picture of one just like it that I found on eBay. I intend to get a good one soon. I think your OSB backer wings make a lot of sense, as long as they're not structural (and they appear not to be). Still, I wonder if it might have been better to use a 2x6 or a 2x8 intead...? Not that it should be redone or anything -- just a thought for someone who may have a similar issue in the future. It looks like you pre-sealed the area where the OSB strips meet the top of the joists.

i considered 2x6, but that would have been expensive, heavy, and overkill i think ... the issue is really just having something solid behind the seam, so that the seam is not such a weak point. there is really not too much need for the backer from a structural viewpoint, since the joists are on 16" centers. although it doesn't hurt.

I just noticed that i had passed the one year anniversary of starting the physical work on the studio (jun 14). overall i guess i'm pleased with the amount of progress. one regret is i haven't kept track of how much i've spent. it would have been fairly easy to keep a jar for receipts for all the HD and other receipts ... but then again maybe it's better not to know. i may go back thru my past year credit card invoices and add up the HD amounts, most of that will be studio related. what would have been even cooler would have been to actually scan or photograph all the receipts and post them here. BUT ... one only has so much energy. anyway, on to this week's progress. not as much as Sharward has done, i'm afraid to say, but progress nonetheless. i began on the dreaded ventilation. as i go through this project i find that there are particular issues of the project that worry me and bug me, and i always want to start on them so i can get a handle on it and it will stop bugging me. the ventilation is like this. so anyway after looking at HD's selection of ductwork parts and seeing how expensive they are, i've adopted a plan of building most of the ductwork out of wood, which has the added advantage of much larger cross section, and better sound isolation and damping potential than round metal duct. so yesterday i built the better part of one duct, using the new 2x8 joists as sides of the duct and using OSB for the bottom. i will layer a few inches of rockwool on the bottom of the duct to absorb sound. as long as i have at least 3.5 inches of open space in the duct i should be equal in cross section to an 8 inch round duct. so that should work. one end of the duct will have an 8" round adapter coming out from it with metal duct going straight up out my roof. the other end will turn toward the corner of the room, simultaneously dropping down as it turns to inhabit the space between the "old" 2x6 joists. this duct will have less depth, but wider, 24 inches wide so the cross sectional area is still huge, still around double that of an 8 inch duct. i could probably throw some rockwool in here just for fun since i have the room. i'm sure this is hard to follow but the most important thing to know i guess is that part of this duct is primarily outside the outer leaf (the bottom of the duct IS the outer leaf), while part of the duct is inside the outer leaf (the top of the duct IS the outer leaf. neither of these parts will touch the inner leaf, which will receive the end of the duct via a short bit of flexible duct. also i started demoing the area in the attic adjacent to my studio which will be home to the fantech fan. it needs to be in this spot so it remains accessible from outside the studio. one more thing, if anyone is wondering whether to buy a table saw, i have really found it useful, here's a picture of my setup, i think i would be having a hard time without it. it rocks. just make sure to use a push stick, i made one that is about 3 feet long :) ... my fingers never get anywhere near the blade. just the amount of money saved by ripping your own smaller pieces out of larger pieces is huge. like did you ever notice a 1x4 costs the same or more than a 2x4, even though it is half as much wood.

I too have lost all track (track I never had in the first place) of how much I've spent. Much of what I have spent has been via Home Depot gift cards that I receive membership in American Express Rewards. We put just about everything on our AmEx card, then pay it all off the following month. I have received over a thousand dollars' worth of Home Depot gift cards in the three years I've had this AmEx card. :twisted: Hey, that "hole in the ceiling" photo reminds me of the year-ago "I'm a man of action" pic! ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

wow, i have to look into getting one of those amex cards ... unless the annual fee is $350 :D yeah, that hole in the ceiling is what prompted me to look back and see when i made that earlier hole. just over a year ago :?

The annual fee is $55 plus another $30 for the wife's card. However, if you use it for everything you buy -- especially gasoline and groceries, which earn you double points -- you can earn thousands of points each month. Every 2,500 points gets you $25 in Home Depot cards. (There are other retailers from which to choose, such as Linens & Things, The Sharper Image, etc., but I always get HD of course! :twisted:). The rewards have outweighed the costs by about 5:1 in my case. 8) --Keith :mrgreen: