Kathy's Barn Conversion!

axeman69 wrote:

Kathy, Looks like a great place for a party. I'll bring the beer..... Kudos,

Ok! Make it Corona, please. With my color choices for the walls and ceiling, everyone that walks in here says it reminds them of a mexican restaurant. :lol: And this is usually my expression :shock:

Kathy wrote:

axeman69 wrote:

Kathy, Looks like a great place for a party. I'll bring the beer..... Kudos,

Ok! Make it Corona, please. With my color choices for the walls and ceiling, everyone that walks in here says it reminds them of a mexican restaurant. :lol: And this is usually my expression :shock:

Corona it is. Although, I don't think it comes in half kegs. When I have a party, it's a party..... :)

By the way, my Ambience minisplit unit is on the Fed Ex truck and will be here by next week. I will take pictures of the process of Scott and my uncle installing it. It requires only a 3 inch hole but we have to punch thru double drywall and all that. Anyways, after the unit is in (I am currently roasting now in the barn) and I post those install pictures the last thing I want to do is post a few pics and comments about my "regrets" or mistakes. Hindsight stuff. Perhaps it will help someone else. Then maybe we can move this thread to the Completed Studios section? Wow......I can't even believe that is a possibility. Completion. What a nice sounding word. Now excuse me while I get out of this oven. Why is it that such a well insulated building is heating up inside rather than staying cool and keeping the heat out? Can anyone explain that? I thought my biggest problem would be the winters and keeping it warm. Turns out a cheap heater keeps it nice and toasty - I'm sure the insulation and the tightness of the room is the reason. But why doesn't it work the opposite way? Why isn't it keeping the heat out??? I'm ready for a science lesson.......Rod? Anyone?

Kathy wrote:

By the way, my Ambience minisplit unit is on the Fed Ex truck and will be here by next week. I will take pictures of the process of Scott and my uncle installing it. It requires only a 3 inch hole but we have to punch thru double drywall and all that.

Would punching through the double drywall, and running the tubing through cause any flanking?

axeman69 wrote:

Kathy wrote:

By the way, my Ambience minisplit unit is on the Fed Ex truck and will be here by next week. I will take pictures of the process of Scott and my uncle installing it. It requires only a 3 inch hole but we have to punch thru double drywall and all that.

Would punching through the double drywall, and running the tubing through cause any flanking?

Well.......I dunno. What the heck is flanking? All I'm thinkin' of is a steak. :) Perhaps you mean will it cause the surrounding drywall to break??? Our approach is to drill a small pilot hole all the way thru to the outside. I know where the yellow Romex is tucked away so I know where to drill to be near it but away from it. Then we are going to start from the outside with a 3" round punch thingy (pardon my ignorance on the tool name) but stop once we get thru the siding and hit insulation. Then, we'll come inside and push thru the other way. Does that sound alright?

Kathy wrote:

Now excuse me while I get out of this oven. Why is it that such a well insulated building is heating up inside rather than staying cool and keeping the heat out? Can anyone explain that? I thought my biggest problem would be the winters and keeping it warm. Turns out a cheap heater keeps it nice and toasty - I'm sure the insulation and the tightness of the room is the reason. But why doesn't it work the opposite way? Why isn't it keeping the heat out??? I'm ready for a science lesson.......Rod? Anyone?

Kathy, It isn't heating up because of the outside - it's heating up because of the inside. It's heating up because you have gear running - and your human body going (which is quite a heater BTW) and you're breathing warm moist air into the room - and none of this heat and moisture have anywhere to go because you have this super insulated - super air tight room holding everything in. In most control rooms (in the US anyway) - they run the air conditioner during the winter - not the heat. That is how much heat you and your gear and the lights, etc. put out. Sincerely, Rod

rod gervais wrote:

Kathy wrote:

Now excuse me while I get out of this oven. Why is it that such a well insulated building is heating up inside rather than staying cool and keeping the heat out? Can anyone explain that? I thought my biggest problem would be the winters and keeping it warm. Turns out a cheap heater keeps it nice and toasty - I'm sure the insulation and the tightness of the room is the reason. But why doesn't it work the opposite way? Why isn't it keeping the heat out??? I'm ready for a science lesson.......Rod? Anyone?

Kathy, It isn't heating up because of the outside - it's heating up because of the inside. It's heating up because you have gear running - and your human body going (which is quite a heater BTW) and you're breathing warm moist air into the room - and none of this heat and moisture have anywhere to go because you have this super insulated - super air tight room holding everything in. In most control rooms (in the US anyway) - they run the air conditioner during the winter - not the heat. That is how much heat you and your gear and the lights, etc. put out. Sincerely, Rod

This is so true. I'm in IT. I used to have an office in the server room. We needed some new air conditioning, so we started adding up how much heat each piece of equipment puts out. It totaled more than the furnace in my house. We ran Air Conditioning all year long. And I'm in Central PA where the winters can be pretty brutal. BTW, flanking is the effect of sound making it's way through two leaves via a common source. If you run a piece of tubing through your inner and outer leaves (walls) that are disconnected, you'll connect them and the sound will transfer to the outside. Or something like that. I'm sure someone will correct my assessment of what flanking is. :)

Kathy wrote:

By the way, my Ambience minisplit unit is on the Fed Ex truck and will be here by next week. . . . Now excuse me while I get out of this oven. Why is it that such a well insulated building is heating up inside rather than staying cool and keeping the heat out? Can anyone explain that? I thought my biggest problem would be the winters and keeping it warm. Turns out a cheap heater keeps it nice and toasty - I'm sure the insulation and the tightness of the room is the reason. But why doesn't it work the opposite way? Why isn't it keeping the heat out???

A few things are coming into play here. Technically, insulation retards the migration of warmth. A well insulated house in the winter retains the heat generated inside. A well insulated house in the summer minimizes the amount of heat that transfers from the outside to the inside. Insulation "keeps the cool inside" only indirectly -- it keeps the cool from getting warm, so to speak. If your room were to be a perfect temperature with all of your gear turned off and you not in it, it's only a matter of time before your CPUs, lights, and transformers start to get hot. Where does the heat go? Into the room, of course. It could be cool and pleasant outside, but once the room heats up, the heat is trapped by all the insulation and air-tightness of the construction. In a poorly insulated space, the heat would migrate through the wall to the outside. In your space, this happens as well, but it takes much longer because of all the insulation. Plus, there's effectively a substantial heater in the room when you are there -- YOU! You know how crowded, enclosed spaces get "stuffy"? Well, that's due to the humidity of all the vapor you are exhaling. Get close and personal with your favorite mirror and breathe on it. See all that fog? That's microscopic water droplets condensing on the cool glass. The cool glass attracts the water molecules so you can really see the effect. If you had windows in your room, I'm sure they'd be covered in moisture after just a short visit. Put a humidity sensor in that room and you'll see that the humidity goes up once you've been in there for a while. You should also consider yourself lucky that you are getting uncomfortable, because at this point, I don't think you have yet executed any plans to provision your space with any fresh air! :shock: Go back and reread page 6 of your thread. There you'll see lots of discussion about fresh air ventilation requirements in spaces without operable windows, the fact that mini splits offering fresh air provisioning are rare, etc. Your post this morning is the first we have seen mentioning a specific brand name. I'm unable to find any specs on that brand. What model number are you buying? I have a hunch that it doesn't offer fresh air. More than a year has passed since we discussed this on your thread. Since then, there have been many fruitful discussions about fresh air requirements in air-tight windowless spaces. This is one of my favorites. It gets pretty heated, which is why I had to shut the thread down... But it's full of excellent information and important warnings that I believe should be heeded, including the very real "sick building syndrome (SBS)." Anytime someone dismisses the importance of mechanical fresh air ventilation in a windowless studio, I send him (or her! ;-)) there. Finally, I'm sorry -- I have to say it -- it's the proverbial "elephant in the room." In my infamous "Permits, Codes, Licenses -- and WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!" thread, you wrote:

Kathy wrote:

I've been waiting for you to give me a lecture on this one, Keith. I know how you feel about it and as of right now I don't have a permit. We may go see him very soon.

I have to conclude that you didn't do that, because I saw no news of plan checks or inspections, and there's no way such habitable space would be allowed to be built without a ventilation system. I'm deeply concerned that if you proceed with the installation of a mini split system that has no fresh air provisioning feature, you'll make your room so comfortable temperature- and humidity-wise that you'll not want to leave, and that then you'll suffer the effects of SBS by inhaling too much carbon dioxide. Kathy, you've created such a beautiful and inspiring space, but it's not healthy. I'll be very interested in seeing how you address this critically important issue. --Keith :mrgreen:

Kathy, to help you visualize this - here's a print out of calcs for a project studio I designed in NC.......... I ran the calcs 2 ways (for the same rom) to demonstrate the different needs between a control room and a tracking room......... Rod

Ok guys......just a quickie note here because not only am I overwhelmed with information and also have things to ask and discuss......but Nana just arrived for the weekend and I have to go for the moment. I didn't want anyone to think I was ignoring the posts. My mind is on all of this now. I read that hostile thread. I tried to read the link about SBS but it is no longer active. I do have a unique situation here that may diffuse alot of this.....but I can't go into it all 'til I have time later this weekend. For now, here is the link to the unit I purchased. I actually got it cheaper than what they are selling it for now because I ordered it last month. http://www.minisplitsystems.com/cgi/display.cgi?item_num=AS12-115V13H I'll be back soon.

I'm 99.9% sure that unit supplies no fresh air... Enjoy Nana... We'll be tuned in when you return. --Keith :mrgreen:

Looks beautiful Kathy. Is that a WRT-820 I see there? I love the old Ramsa consoles. I use an 8616 in my studio.