Andy Eade's Rotten Basement Conversion Thread

Andy, I feel for you. Had the same problem with my drywallers. My second layer was much nicer than the first. Half the caulk on the second layer Looking good. We are about the same in progress it looks like to me. Question what are the romex lines for coming throught the wall ..looks like about ten wires outside you CR..Light switches Tom

Yeah they're all for the track lighting (everything is surface mount), and there is one switch for a recording light which goes out in the stairwell entrey to the studio. 2nd layer of drywall is now up and caulked in the control room. tomorrow should be the third layer on the ceiling and begining the performance room. The progress does feel good - at last! :D

Hindsight tip Picked up a nice little tip from the drywall contractors over the last couple days that works like a charm (Maybe this was already obvious to you, but not me). After installing the backer rod and caulking the joints; in order to eliminate any hairline cracks, and especially to make the joint seal flush ready for tape or next layer of sheetrock; take a pass at it with a putty knife. It'll give you a really clean and tidy look. More pics to come later on. We're done with the control room and just hanging the 2nd layer in the performance room.

DRYWALL DONE!!! Yep - the 3rd layer is done and here are the pictures to prove it. I actually ran out of the OSI caulk, and my friend brought me a leftover box of Sheetrock brand acoustical caulk which I used on the last layer. OMG what a difference!! This stuff is SO much easier to work with. Has anyone else found this? It's a bit thicker which makes it harder to squeeze from the tube (my forearm muscles took a beating); but once it's out of the tube it stays in place better and is much easier to spread and work with. Just wanted to pass that on for anyone trying to decide which brand to work with. Wish I'd known this 5 cases ago :roll: Anyhoo. Here are the pics as of now. Skimcoat and sanding are not done in these pics -that should be completed this week while I'm over in the UK for my birthday. Then when I get back it should be time to start painting and putting in doors, windows and floor. yippee! :D

Congratulations, Andy Eade!! :-D This a great milestone and a great one to achieve before your birthday trip across the pond, too! Hey, your observations about OSI vs. Sheetrock acoustic sealant is very interesting. I have several leftover Sheetrock tubes given to me by Stick, plus a few OSI tubes as well that I bought for beef-up. I'll definitely have an opportunity to corroborate your observations! Of course, the REAL important thing is how long the seals last, and we just won't know that... :roll: --Keith :mrgreen:

SO in the spirit of "no pictures - didn't happen". Here are some updated pictures from about 2 weeks back. I need to take same as of now (paint is up on walls an ceiling.) But these show the doors and windows in, custom door frames built etc. Enjoy! A couple of hindsight notes that I hope might be useful to you all. 1) If you use contractors - watch them like a hawk - REGULARLY! I have had my biggest screw up to date here in the last week and it has caused much frustration, a major change in esthetic design, and a delay of 2 weeks to correct. The problem also compounded over two separate contractors blunders (and my own for not checking). Here's what happened: The electrician had stapled all of the cables in place (or most it would seem) where they should be brought through in the wall. On the day the drywallers began installation of sheetrock I made it clear to them that these were for outlets etc, were going to be Wiremold boxes, and NEEDED TO BE ALL AT THE SAME HEIGHT. The main failure was with the cable for the track lighting. I don't believe this was measured, nor stapled, so the drywall guys just pulled it through wherever it was. So what I ended up with, having finished, sanded, primed, and painted all walls and ceilings was track lighting that does not line up and a couple of outlets that are up to 3 inches higher than all the others. Just to add to the nightmare, the electrician sent his "assistant" out to install the tracks (bear in mind that we did not notice any of this upon completion of the sheetrock - hence why I painted). The "ass"-istant spent a whole day installing 7 tracks and at the end of the day tells me he's leaving so I'm like "let me come done and check it out". My chin must have hit the floor when I saw nothing lined up. I think the exchange went something like this: Me: Ummm, nothing lines up Ass-istant: yyyyyeah Me: Well don't you think it looks... uh... weird Ass-istant: YYYYYeah I did think that My internal voice: THEN WHY THE EFF DIDN'T YOU STOP EVERYTHING AND COME ASK ME BEFORE YOU CUT THE ROMEX FLUSH WITH THE WALLS AND CEILING YOU JACK@$$. You see, considering the direction that the cable comes in from, once he cut it; we no longer have any slack to move it. MAJOR PROBLEM! It has been a real pain to rectify whilst still maintaining the soundproof integrity of the construction. So, be sure to follow these guys around with a tape measure. My other piece of hindsight you'll be pleased to know, is a positive one: 2) If you're planning on using adjustable door seals and automatic door bottoms like the zero international ones - SHOP AROUND. I had originally been scoping out two different products from two well-known, competing, acoustic supplies websites. One of the products (was way out of my price range) was coming in around $500 for the complete door kit, and the competitor was more like $300. I did a little research online to find who the manufacturers of the seals were (and there are many; Reese; Pemko, Zero etc..) and called them to ask about sales; they referred me to my local shop here in Alexandria, VA who sold me the exact same set up for about 50% of the cost. $50 for the auto door bottom, and $96 for the adjustable jamb seals. They even had real nice seals for the second seal around the door for about $10 per door. I can't wait to get these puppies installed. I am pasting below links to the products I am going with. These savings were so significant that it was the difference between only using pro seals on two of the four doors vs. using them on ALL of the doors – yippee! Hope this is all helpful info to you all. Jamb Seal Auto Door Bottom weatherstrip Cheers! Andy

Sorry about the quality of these next one's. I'm clearly no photographer! =) I will post the latest one's with paint very soon - it's all starting to come together now! :D

Oh, MAAAANNNNN -- what a story, Andy! :? I surely would have had the same problem if I had someone working for me because my stapled Romex is also not precisely measured -- something that I intend to do before sheathing and drywall goes up. You described the proble., but not the solution -- how did you remedy that situation? Congratulation on the progress!!! :twisted: Seems like yesterday you were discovering past termite and moisture damage and asbestos-laden tiles! Look at you now!!! :-D --Keith :mrgreen:

I know Keith - it has been quite a year! So the solution was complex to say the least. For the performance Room: Remove two of the tracks, and move the romex back towards the wall (where the line feeds from) such that it lines up with it's neighbouring track. Bear in mind that I have 3 layers of sheetrock in this room, so to attempt to jeapordize my isolation we cut the first layer a square about 12 inches square, the second about 6 inches and the third very small. This allowed to re-seal each layer and overlap the seams. The layout of the track has also been changed from 4 independent tracks in four corners to a U shaped configuration - this helps eveything line up and look intentional rather than sloppy and un-measured. Everything will be clearer with a few photo's I promise. For the control room: Here there was only one track that was next to another that wasn'y lined up. By turning it about 30 degree's it too looks intentional and actually better! Who'd have thought! For the few outlets that are off; luckily for me the two that are really bad are on their own wall with no neighbouring outlets so we punched out the lowest (or highest) hole in the back of the wiremold box to buy as much adjustment as possible. They will still be off, but hopefully it won't notice too much being as they are on their own wall. I have been told that when you're working on a project of this magnitude to expect problems to occurr and it's all about the solution you implement, which in our case always has to be thought through very carefully to consider it's sound implications. In my case I put everything on pause and slept on it for a couple of days before I came up with the solution. As Winston Churchill once said "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm". Funnily enough I heard this on a David Blaine special on TLC the other night when i was desperately trying to come up with solutions to these problems. It definitely made me smile! =)

Oooh one other piece of hindsight advice if you use a contractor for the sheetrock. mark on the floor wherever there is cable that should be pulled through. That way if the contractor misses on you will notice before it's too late. Thankfully this didn't happen to me, but hopefully because I was careful with this. I spray painyed an "O" on the floor wherever there was cable to be pulled for an outlet, an "L" for lighting, and"S" for switch. If there were multiple switches I would add a number - 5S for example. I also used "T" for the two room thermostats. hope this too helps you. Andy

That's a great idea. I actually plan to mark the floor with tape or something to show the location of all the studs too. That's especially helpful, I would think, when dealing with multiple layers. --Keith :mrgreen:

Hey Guys. First of all let me get the apologies out of the way. It's been such a hectic time since I last posted. The studio is 90% complete, I'm now engaged, and even though there is still much to do to complete the studio, I am very busy down there with clients, my own band, and a whole lot of solo work. On top of the day job (which has been busier than ever too) it's been tough to find time for anything lately, but I did at least want to update you with some pictures of the studio in operation - taken during my first official session back in May. I do have some other pictures when it's looking a bit tidier ob my other computer that I need to get up here too. What else. Well, I guess I'll give you the status on problems / lessons learned since launch (of which thankfully there are only two): 1) No matter how many thermostats and mechancal dampers you have, if you only have one A/C unit that is shared with the rest of the house - it will only pump cool or hot air if it is cooling or heating the rest of the house. If you consider the temperature difference between a basement and the rest of the house; you can probably imagine that this is sometimes an issue. Not huge, but worth noting, and totally not what the heating guy explained to me. 2) Having followed the spec on electric / grounding to a tee - I still have a lot of issues with hum from guitars and keyboards. The desk itself is silent ass a church mouse, but bring a guitar or keyboard into the desk and enjoy the wonderful sound of 60hz as it decimates your mix! With guitars it does seem to be very sensitibe to where you stand and your orientation, however it doesn't seemed to be linked to proximity to the electrcal panel or anything like that. I have tried trouble-shooting in a number of ways- - Switching off circuits one breaker at a time to see if any have the most impact. There were two or three that reduced the noise a little. - Building a faraday cage over the electric panel to reduce EMI. No dice. - Experimenting with Ferrite Chokes on cables. No dice. - Trying different outlets to see if the noise is les noticable. Interestingly it is. When plugged into the same outlet as the desk the hum is reduced drastically (though not completely); which made me think it was a ground loop. However there is only one ground for the house and each outlet has it's own run. So we're going to try adding a power conditioner to the circuits that seem to be affecting the noise (as found in the first trial above). I'll keep you posted! So how about the good news? Well, I accomplished the main goal I set out to achive. We have two isolated rooms, they sound great, and people can sleep upstairs while I'm tracking drums downstairs. Similarly you can't hear a thing outside of the house when I'm tracking a full band. Sweet! :D I think that's about it for now. Again sorry it's taken so long. Now I need to find some time to catch up on everone else's threads. I did see that Keith is still building instead of rocking - come on man - put down the hammer and pick up the sticks already! ;) I can't even begin to tell you how much I love those two rooms, how happy I feel down there, and how much time I spend down there. Thank you all so much for you help, and for saving my lungs from Aspestos! I have told countless people I would probably be dead were it not for this forum! Sincerely, Andy "The Green Room" Studio.

Hai Andy, good to see you found your way back to the JLS forum :) And congrats on the engagement, when's the "big" day? Good the isolation works for you, really good in fact. Building a great room is one thing, having faith it's going to work properly is another. Groundloops... yeah, JUK!!! cheers, mate.

Hey Andy your studio looks great. I'm trying to figure out how to do my track lighting and am wondering how you did yours. Did you use an electrical box? In your pictures it looks like your wires are just poking through the ceiling. My ceiling is hanging on RC-1 so I don't really have any thing to attach a ceiling box to. I was planing on using a surface mounted wiremold ceiling box for my track lighting but if there is a way to do it without a box that would be great. Just wondering how you ended up doing yours. -Lief

It's been quite a crazy couple of years for me so my apologies for not being around. My wife and I did not hang around and were blessed to bring a wonderful little boy into the world last year. For those of you already married and with kids I'm sure you will understand. Pretty much from the first trimester life has been extremely different, and it has been difficult to find any spare time - priorities changed to 1) Family First, 2) Work that pays (supports #1) and then third comes everything else - this would encompass all work in the studio, work with my band, and working to get Music to move to the #2 slot so that it pays rather than costs :) Anyhoo - since the little guy is now turning 10 months old soon I have finally been able to get some more time for #3, and recently installed a bunch of cameras into the studio so that I can provide webcasting for my clients (and my band). We will be broadcasting the first show from my studio on 06/08/11, and will be doing a kind of after show skype party. I thought I'd post it here in case any of you would be interested to get an inside peek into the studio in operation and ask any questions in real time. The link below is a little Youtube clip to give you a taster of what to expect along with one of the first mixes to come out of my studio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=369w0fJQgcg Let me know what you guys think, and look forward to catching up with some friends again soon. Sincere best wishes to you all, Andy

We're going to be doing another two video webcasts next week :yahoo: Wednesday Dec 7th @ 9pm (EST), and Sunday Dec 11th @ 3pm (GMT) The first hour or so will be progressive space rock from my band Zero Mercury, and then the second half will be what we call the after-show party when people can Skype in to "RecordingStudioLive" to chat about this, that, and anything. I'd be really happy to use that segment to chat with anyone about Studio design / construction etc. So please come join us. It'll also be a great opportunity to get an inside tour around the finished studio here. Get a sneak peek with this YouTube video here. Get more detail, watch show archives, and watch the show love on 12/7 and 12/11 at: www.RecordingStudioLive.com, and at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/recordingstudiolive Hope to see some of you next week! Andy http://www.andreweade.com

For anyone that found interest in this build thread, I'm both excited and nervous to announce that I'm starting all over again. Our family has further expanded and we needed more space, so we moved a little further out so that we could get a little more square footage. The good news for me is that I get more space this time, and a opportunity to build upon what I learned last time around. For anyone interested in following the new build thread: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18547 Many thanks and hope you are all well, Andy.

I finally got around to totaling up my expenses for this past build. I thought I should analyze this before starting on the new studio and I'm glad I did. In brief, I spent a little over $30k. :shock: Yes, I too was shocked. Somehow it just all adds up. Now, admittedly I encountered some unexpected expenses right out of the gate which really added up. If it's of any use to you - here are some of the big ticket expenses: Basement sump and French drain 4400 HVAC 4016 Electrician Total 3769.93 Drywall and labor ($21/h) 3392.38 Wood framing and materials 2989.66 Asbestos abatement 1665 Insulation Total 1086.4 Door seals, bottoms and tape seals 903 Termite treatment 785 RSIC clips 760.7 Sliding Glass doors and materials 662.14 Quiet glue (4 cases of 12) 520.74 Track lighting 468.18 4 salvage solid core Doors mahogany 435 This was for a space that was around 570 sq ft, so I'm a little over $50 per square foot. If anyone has any specific questions or wants more detail just let me know. Andy

Thanks for posting that, Andy! that's REALLY useful info, as it gives people an idea of all of the "extras" that they generally don't think about up-front. That's about the only unbreakable rule about building studios: it always costs a lot more than you ever imagined it would! :) - Stuart -

Yeah no kidding. I think subconsciously I knew I spent way more than planned which is perhaps why it took me a few years to pluck up the courage and add up all the receipts :shock: One other item that may be of interest to some. My studio got featured in this music video - quite considerably in the spoof opening! http://youtu.be/aNuaVR-hstE

I'm not sure I want to add everything up....