Dan F's One-Room Garage Studio

Congratulations on the progress, Dan! Keep it up -- we don't want your thread to get lost again! ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

Thanks Keith -- I found my camera this morning so maybe I'll do a picture review over the weekend.

Dan, it's awesome to hear about your progress. I can't wait to see how your garage comes out. I started my project about a week and a half ago. It's coming along great. I'm on the inside mass layer. I decided to first try and get the garage door air tight and if it's still a problem, then I'll consider a true room within a room system. But already with just the outer mass layer, the sound has been cut down by about half. Instead of panels, I just mounted the OSB and drywall directly to the garage door and used the individual panels as studs; my garage door studs are pretty thick. This is what I went with: Garage Door --> EPS --> OSB --> 5/8" Drywall --> 5/8" Drywall --> 10" Air Now I'm about to start the inside mass layer since the framing and caulking is just about finished. What would you recommend for the inside layer of mass? Right now I'm thinking either: 5/8" Drywall --> 5/8" Drywall --> 5/8" Drywall or just OSB -- > 5/8" Drywall --> 5/8" Drywall --> I figure that the first option is better because the drywall is more mass and blocks out more sound, so I figure I can always add more to the inside. Thanks so much for the help and sorry to hijack your amazing thread with useful information. I hope that your studio comes out great.

hey no problem ... i guess you are right, the 3x 5/8 would be better. looks like you are on the right track though. == dan

Dan, How you dealt with your garage door was genius! I'm going to follow your example with mine. Thank you! I love this forum! Now, please give us an update with pics when you can!

cool ... please hire a pro to dismantle your garage door spring system, you'll be glad you did :)

Thanks Dan. Actually, I found instructions for dismantling the door and springs on the internet. The springs were on the side, which I think made it easier. Ironically, I had to reassemble the door to make it operational again(don't ask) but I had to do it without the springs! Boy, those doors are heavy without the springs! But after the drywall delivery, I'll be isolating the door exactly the way you did it. This is one area that has kept me awake at night if you know what I mean! Discovering your solution last night was an answer to my prayers! Once again, thanks for all your documentation on your project and hope everything is going well for your studio.

Dan Fitzpatrick wrote:

Thanks Keith -- I found my camera this morning so maybe I'll do a picture review over the weekend.

bwahahahhahahahahaa, clearly i lied here. but i have to tell everyone that i am still making progress on the studio. one thing i have learned during this project is how to have patience and long term goals and all that stuff. sometimes something worth doing can take, well, years. so anyway. let me publicly state my new (revised) goal of completion: 3 years total. i had thought i would finish by year end. obviously not. so now, i need to finish by the 3 year mark. someone check when i started this thread. was it april '05? may? well i can't look right now. but you get the idea. later. dan

Dan, I've been waiting for an update from you. You, Keith, and Marc fell off the face of the earth. I was following your threads closely, then you guys disappeared! Give us something- anything- one picture....

ok, i've finally got some pictures. as of about a week ago i have really and truly completed the outer leaf. the last thing i did was the door closer and the doorjamb and seal. there is nothing else to do but start building the inner leaf. for the door seal i was going to go with Rod's K seal recommendation, and i even found a source for it online, but then i decided to try some stuff i found at home depot instead, which probably isnt' as good, but the way my jamb is done it is easy to change if i decide to. today i bought half of the framing lumber for the inner leaf walls, i'll do half first, move all the crap, and then do the other half (the half that includes the door will be done second). then the ceiling joists. the only remaining head-scratcher is how to run all of the computer cables thru the wall. i want the computer to be outside the room, and just the monitor, keyboard etc inside. i probably will make a small removable panel in the inner and outer leaves (very far from each other) and make keyholes big enough to fit the required cables. and then caulk. should be good. i did some sound testing with the complete outer leaf, just for fun. i created some tone tracks at 16hz, 32hz, 64hz (more or less anyway) and blasted the tones as loud as my little computer speakers w/subwoofer would go (not very loud, only about 85db according to my radio shack meter). then i went outside to hear what i could hear. isolation, masked by background noise, was surprisingly good for one leaf. but i could hear particularly the 16hz tone fairly easily even quite a ways from the garage. When i did the tones at 75db i really couldn't hear anything. i'm very confident that once i get the second leaf done i'll have excellent isolation. the weakest point was my door, of course. but that is ok since it is only bad when you are in the other part of the garage. outside or in the house, there is another door that stops the noise. but anyway once i have the second door from the second leaf everything should be peachy. but i don't think it's really the seal that's the problem, since even when i put my whole weight against the door to seal it better, there is hardly any difference, except in the high frequencies, which you would expect would suffer most from a bad seal. but i'm not worried about highs. the problem with doors i think is that they are movable. they may have as good or better density than the wall right adjacent to them, but the wall is attached to more wall and the floor, etc, and isn't going to move as much. the door is going to vibrate and transmit sound no matter how good the seal is. you have to add a lot more mass to improve it. which i could do. anyway, here are the pix.

oh yeah, don't forget to check out the kick ass shelves i made in the first picture, attached to the new outer leaf wall. lots of good storage space there. also, one note about the door seal. i was pretty sure that the adhesive on that seal wasn't going to stick worth a damn on the bare wood of the jamb, so i put contact cement on that surface, and on the seal. it sticks great. it actually sticks pretty good with just contact cement on the wood and the adhesive that comes already on the seal, but i went for the overkill. i attached the seal to the wood strip before i attached it to the door frame. i had the closer installed already and had wood blocks set up to keep it closed to the point i wanted it, then i snugged up the wood strip with seal up to the door all the way around. on hanging the door, i just put the door in place and framed around it. i actually made it a little tight and had to trim the door a little. then i chiseled out the recesses for the hinges by hand, both on the door and the frame. i actually went too deep and then i shimmed the hinges with some cardboard to get it less deep. but all things considered the door hanging was not that bad. i'm glad that i didn't use a pre-hung, and i'm going to do the inner leaf the same way.

Dan Fitzpatrick wrote:

oh yeah, don't forget to check out the kick ass shelves i made in the first picture, attached to the new outer leaf wall. lots of good storage space there. also, one note about the door seal. i was pretty sure that the adhesive on that seal wasn't going to stick worth a damn on the bare wood of the jamb, so i put contact cement on that surface, and on the seal. it sticks great. it actually sticks pretty good with just contact cement on the wood and the adhesive that comes already on the seal, but i went for the overkill. i attached the seal to the wood strip before i attached it to the door frame. i had the closer installed already and had wood blocks set up to keep it closed to the point i wanted it, then i snugged up the wood strip with seal up to the door all the way around. on hanging the door, i just put the door in place and framed around it. i actually made it a little tight and had to trim the door a little. then i chiseled out the recesses for the hinges by hand, both on the door and the frame. i actually went too deep and then i shimmed the hinges with some cardboard to get it less deep. but all things considered the door hanging was not that bad. i'm glad that i didn't use a pre-hung, and i'm going to do the inner leaf the same way.

Nice progress Dan. Enjoying watching the build. And the little boy (your son?) is so cute! I have my little guy with me (now that all the dangerous stuff is done) painting and helping too. Keep up the good work!

Dan Fitzpatrick wrote:

so anyway. let me publicly state my new (revised) goal of completion: 3 years total. i had thought i would finish by year end. obviously not. so now, i need to finish by the 3 year mark. someone check when i started this thread. was it april '05? may? well i can't look right now. but you get the idea.

Oh man, do I ever know what you mean, Dan! :lol: The turtle race is on, my man! :P --Keith :mrgreen:

@ Brad: thanks for checking in on my thread! Actually that guy is my youngest, about 2 1/2. i have a 6yrs boy and 4yrs girl too. She actually likes helping me the most. She's a great sweeper :) @ Sharward: Glad to see you, I've been monitoring your thread, LOL at going to reno for the fan system, and stuffing it in the back of your RX8 :lol:

You'd laugh even harder if you saw how filthy my car is right now! :lol: CalTrans was dumping sand on I-80 over the summit for extra traction in the snowy conditions and my car has never been dirtier than it is right now! :shock: I would have washed it, but that would have taken time away from my HRV work! :roll: --Keith :mrgreen:

Hey Dan, Glad to see you posting again and that progress is happening. I actually got some work done today. I'm going to post later on my thread. This marks an over 6 month break on doing any work to my build. Anyways it looks like we are scratching are head on the same subject.

the only remaining head-scratcher is how to run all of the computer cables thru the wall. i want the computer to be outside the room, and just the monitor, keyboard etc inside. i probably will make a small removable panel in the inner and outer leaves (very far from each other) and make keyholes big enough to fit the required cables. and then caulk. should be good.

I'm doing the same but trying to leave room for options. My computers could be in my family room and/or I want to have the option of my family room as a make do "CR" (just to get me out of the recording environment) and use my one room CR as a live room. I'll use cams and audio for communication. SO I'm planning on building two large raceways out of 1 1/2" PVC conduit (or even PVC water pipe) for the low voltage lines to go back and forth. With raceways I can reconfigure setups. Also planning to leave a 1/4" cut in the raceways so that the inner leaf and outer leaf part of raceways are decoupled... can't do anything about the wire. When and if you have more ideas on the subject, I'm all ears. I'm going to be working on the inner leaf section of my raceway soon. Marc

Hi Marc, I'm thinking of some kind of conduit as well. The part I'm stumped on is how to get the wires thru the gypsum. Should I just make a hole and caulk around it, or should I go for the deluxe version and solder a panel on each end. Or somewhere in between. I'm about to go over to Aaron's thread and see if I can see what he did.

Dan, Don't put the wires through the Gypsum. Put the conduit pipe through the gypsum. You'll have to get conduit pipe big enough so the end of the largest cable will fit. Pull the cables through conduit after your done building. I've got through more thought on mine. I bought some 1" and 1 1/2" 90 degree turning conduit. I'm going to make my run turn 90 one way, turn 90 another way, go straight a ways and then turn 90 into the other wall. I'm not going to exceed a 5' or 6' run. I'm taking the 1" and 1 1/2" conduit back. I think I'm going to go with 3" or bigger. Big whole in the wall to deal with. At least it will be decoupled by leaving a 1/4" gap in the run somewheres. Aaron described that too somewheres. On the electric thread Aaron made a sticky with a bunch of links for parts. Included is some places that make custom connector panels. I don't know if I'm going to bother with a connector panel yet BUT I do know on the family room side of my hole in the wall it will either have to look nice or be out of sight. Also still up for debate is how to plug either end of the conduit once cables are installed. I do recall reading on the forum stuffing fiberglass or a towel or something into the hole around wires... also a pretty box with a custom connector panel would be nice... but USB has a 15' max run and some devices don't work USB extension. Only use High Grade SVGA cable or you'll get ghosting on the monitor screen. PS/2 (mouse and keyboard) can run 25'. Firewire I think is 10' or 12'... can't remember. Both Firewire and USB booster boxes are available but add to project cost, and I'd rather keep to manufacture if original device suggestions. Marc

Guys, be aware that a rigid conduit firmly connected to both leaves will probably form a flanking path. :? You may need to do some kind of rubber coupling in the conduit between the leaves to break the firm connection. Either that or check out the Mason Industries site for isolation collars of some sort. --Keith :mrgreen:

Keith, The suggestion somewhere on this Forum that I think Aaron made is the leave a 1/4" break in the conduit run to avoid flanking. Conduit is actually in two parts, one attached to inner wall and the other part attached to the outer wall. "Outer" and "inner" part of conduit is lined up exact at the break. The only flanking would happen through the cables which will be impossible to avoid. Only thing to remember when fishing the cables through is there is a break somewhere that the cables may snag on. Marc

interestingly i remember a long while back Brian Ravnaas the green glue guy did a test where both leaves had a 2 inch hole that was just left open, only the holes were not lined up, the holes made hardly any difference in TL. i believe the holes were offset several feet at least. that doesn't mean you should leave big holes, but it should put things in perspective a little. the thing is that long sound waves (low freq) can't get thru small holes easily.

I agree Dan. I think if there's a small hole or a screw touches a joist - no worries...

it depends on how much isolation you have as to the amount that a small hole or physical connection between layers will reduce it. if you have only 29db of isolation then flanking or small holes probably isn't your main concern. if you have 60db of isolation, then flanking and air leaks (even small ones) will be a bigger problem. and yes, low frequencies will pass through very small holes... :wink:

Nice diagram :) Do you disagree that a small hole leaks highs more than lows? Ever notice how when a door is open only a crack, you can hear mostly the high frequencies leaking out, but then when you open it up all the way you hear more of the whole spectrum? That's what i'm talking about.

I believe that's true very, Dan.