Digging down for head room. Am I crazy?

I know this is a fairly common dilemma and I've searched extensively but I've yet to get a definative answer. So I guess I'll ask the specific question. I own a city house(meaning .25 acre, fairly close neighbors, yada yada) that's about 80 years old. The basement is fairly large at about 25'x35'. It would be perfect for a one room studio and I can't wait to start. Headroom is the only issue. It's about 7' at the shortest and with ceiling treatments and 1 layer of drylock and another layer of pergo-ish type stuff, I'm looking at less than 6'1/2 finished. As I'm 6'3, this height simply won't work. Especially given the cost of the project. I've read that a much more cost effective way to obtain headroom is to raise the house but the city won't allow it and I've got a lot of porch/deck type structures that would make that avenue more pricey. So... my main points I'm keeping in mind are 1. Plumbing. This is a pain - mainly because it's wrapped in asbestos. The plumbing I'm talking about is the steam heat stuff so back then, that's how they did it. The good news with that is that a good buddy is a licensed asbestos remover and offered to do it for nada. Saint. Another good friend is a plumber and offered to help with the re-routing of the steam pipes. So these 2 big deals are out of the way. 2. Wall construction. I'm a reformed carpenter and will build the wals and do all the rocking. I figured building the walls with offset studs and there would be about a foot between that wall and the basement concrete wall. Should I be filling that space? should I treat that outer wall with something? I dunno. 3. Ceiling. I don't think I can afford the space to drop a ceiling. What would be the next best thing I can do with an attached ceiling to get the best sound isolation? 4. The big one - the floor. Everyone I talk to says I'm crazy. I'm not afraid of working on the floor. There's a concrete floor there already and I have big water problems down there. I figured the water-proofers will have to jack out some stuff as it is so I'll do the rest. That same buddy of mine who will be doing the asbestos work - get this - LIKES to jack hammer and asked me if I would let him do it. I will then set-up a conveyor belt running from the floor to a high window to carry broken up slab and dirt outside. I'm looking to pick up 1.5'. Am I nuts? Can you even do that? What would the range be if I were to pay someone? What other things am I overlooking? If I could get the finished product up to 8 ft I'd consider myself lucky. What do you guys think? Thanks for your help.

The foundation of the house shouldn't rest on the concrete floor. Even 80 years ago they didn't do something that stupid. The only thing you have to worry about is the floor drain... I'm assumming you have one, and any other pipes that may be under the concrete. Check with your local codes to make sure you can lower the floor. It doesn't sound like a crazy idea to me. About the space between the walls you're going to build and the foundation block walls, yeah, fill that space with insulation. Don't leave it open. For the ceiling, if you're not worried about soundproofing, just a layer of drywall. That's the minimum amount of overhead you'd be able to take away. But, if you're like the rest of us that visit this forum, you ARE interested in soundproofing so your wife can watch TV without having to turn it up full blast. In that case, the best option would be to put 6" insulation between the floor joists. Then put up resilient channel (Home Depot sells that by the drywall) and screw two layers of drywall to that. Make sure the drywall that's mounted on the resilient channel doesn't touch anything else but the resilient channel. Caulk around the perimeter at the walls. Stagger the seams of the drywall. the easiest way to do that is to put the first layer "the long way" in the room, and the next layer put "the wide way"... if you get what I mean. Also, make sure you use the correct length screws for the job. If you're screwing up 1/2" drywall, only use 3/4" screws for the first layer. The second layer gets 1 1/4" screws. You'll probably need to pre drill the holes for the screws. Use the smallest bit possible for that, like 7/32" or something real small like that. Buy enough to last a while because you'll break a couple. The resilient channel pretty much takes up 1/2", and the two layers of drywall will take up 1", so you'll lose 1 1/2" total, which isn't too bad, and you'll get really good isolation between the downstairs and upstairs. PS - nice name. :)

SonicClang, Great. That's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much. You are right about me needing as much acoustic isolation as I can get as the wife and kids will be sleeping 2 floors up. you would build walls first and caulk the ceiling into those, right? Thanks for your help. Cheers

Yup. Right on right on.

What about Quietrock on the ceiling? It says one layer of queitrock is equivalent to 8 sheets of drywall. Just thinking.

soniclown wrote:

What about Quietrock on the ceiling? It says one layer of queitrock is equivalent to 8 sheets of drywall. Just thinking.

Also doesn't 1 sheet of Quietrock cost like more than 10 times the cost of 1 sheet of regular sheet-rock? Is that Green Glue stuff worth it?

soniclown wrote:

What about Quietrock on the ceiling? It says one layer of queitrock is equivalent to 8 sheets of drywall. Just thinking.

don't believe the hype. unless the quietrock is as thick as 8 sheets of (what, 1/3"?) drywall. Put, for example, 3 sheets of 5/8 BETWEEN the supportbeams to add mass to the existing ceiling (which is the upper room's floor..) and caulk'm tight. Ya might wanna search the forum for examples (with images) to see what I mean. This way you don't have to drop a 3x5/8 ceiling to get max iso. However the supportbeams will flank sound so a dropped ceiling might cover that a bit. Also, consider to beef up the upper FLOOr (which is your basement's ceiling...) with adding extra mass onnit. that'll save you space in the basement... good luck!

Also doesn't 1 sheet of Quietrock cost like more than 10 times the cost of 1 sheet of regular sheet-rock? Is that Green Glue stuff worth it?

I got a quote of $120 per 4' x 8' sheet of Quietrock in Central Florida. That was before I found this site. If you look at the STC comparisons QuietRock shows on there web site against comparisions on an regular STC chart of drywall then it's easily seen Quietrock is using fuzzy math to pitch there product. Green Glue at approaxamitly $150 per case (enough to attach 6, 4x8 sheets of drywall) makes a lot of "cents" when load wieghts on ceilings are limited. If you can only add 2 layers of dryall to an existing ceiling (leaf), green glue will make it perform like almost 4 layers but with half the weight. That is the reason I am going to use it on my ceiling only, not on walls. Marc

Go with drywall man.

Yeah, I hear you guys. The reason I asked was that I read some bad stuff about that resilient channel and one of the bad reports recommended Quiet rock as an alternative. I'll do a search here to get more info. Has anyone had noteworthy good or bad experiences with resilient channel? One report said it'll fall off the ceiling. Maybe that one was the one that got me thinking. Thanks again all.

Any other opinions about digging?

As to RC and it's "bad points": The primary reason it "fails" is because people use screws that are too long and they go through the drywall, THROUGH the RC and then touch the joists that the RC is attached to. That directly connects your inner drywall to the structure and completely wipes out any gain you get with RC. If you use the right length screws, it should work fine. Quietrock, if I've got my facts straight, is just a sandwich of thin drywall with a sheet of tin/galvanized steel as the "meat" in the sandwich. It "works" by increasing the mass (because steel is more dense than gypsum). You can increase the isolation of a door if you sandwich a thin layer of sheet lead between layers in the door. As to lowering the floor, you really should call in a structural engineer to answer this IN YOUR SPECIFIC CASE. I think the poored floor in your basement acts a little like a "spacer" to hold the bottoms of the walls apart from each other. There is also a little wider footing below the surface along the walls to keep them from settling. You'd want to make sure that you didn't cut off these footings to maintain the structural integrity of the foundation. You MIGHT be able to dig a little extra and put some floor beams between the walls to do the same thing, cover those with dirt, and then put in your new floor. I've never seen that done but is sounds like it might work to me. Again, get a structural engineer to look at this for you. It's probably the best money you'll spend on this project! Adding another 1 1/2 feet of head room (or even more) would be great for you but not at the expense of your house collapsing around you a few years down the road. len

Thought I'd add this those to give you some positive thoughts. About 15 years ago I worked as "the bucket boy" carrying 5 gallon buckets of rock out of the basement one of my grandfathers appartment buildings. The foundation was on a hard rock, maybe bed rock not sure BUT there was only about 500 sqft of floor down there to start. We cleared 1000 to 1500 sqft, of 6 to 7 feet high rock out of that basement. Floor got a cement finish and it became storage. I can't remember how close to the foundation we went, but we did it and now 15 (or more) years later the building still stands. Marc

Thank you. I need some positive thoughts right now. This will be a huge undertaking but I'm ready. It doesn't seem like many people actually do this. I'm sure I'm not alone in the low headroom camp but it seems like not many people feel the need to obtain more. Am I obsessing about this? Should I not do it and worry about other stuff and just deal with low ceilings like most everyone here does? Am I gaining a lot of acoustical benefits from a higher ceiling? Thanks all. I'm pretty well set on this but I seem to be somewhat alone. Just curious if I'm being stupid.

Am I obsessing about this?

I wouldn't worry about that too much, it seems a lot of us are obbsessive. I know for me I've got to learn when to let go or know when my knowledge has been satisfied enough to make the right decision and move on. You know, when you say to yourself "I'm done this mix... stop twiddling knobs, I've done my best, etc..." You will be gaining with a higher ceiling all for code, comfort, isolation and acoustics. More cbft = better sounding room, the bigger the better. It would appear it should come down to this: 1st find out if you can from a structural engineer like Len said... this also requires being willing to spend the money on him alone and live with a possible "no" answer. 2nd Figure out the cost of digging up and refinishing cement. Maybe you could get an estimate before engineer... regardless though once you have that hopefully "real" number you can then decide if you should do this. Your decision. I would not say your "alone"... for me I've got a few things that other people may not have done. Moving my electrical panel was one and I'm about to rip down perfectly good cinder block wall. Both were hard decisions to make that I needed "professional" opinions. For that matter we could also add on "most home studio owners" AND almost of my musician/sound network people/co-workers won't even consider building a sound isolated "room with in a room" OR making a space acoustically correct. I have a few friends who have built very unsafe spaces which are also acoustical nightmares..... what I'm trying to say is no you not alone cause by "most peoples standards" we are already nuts for being here :roll: . Marc

A few random thoughts. Beware of QuietRock claims. Notice that their "one equals eight" claim is based on an STC rating. That would be great if you were planning to hold Toastmasters meetings down there, but you're going to be making a studio for music. (You didn't elaborate on the amount and types of noise you'll be making, which are important factors. Assuming it's loud...) STC numbers are meaningless in this context. Can you dig down to gain headroom? The answer (assuming your city will allow you) is yes. It's been done. The example that comes to mind is Paul Woodlock's project. He did it to accommodate a massive floating slab. You can see his very extensive studio build diary. Don't miss his excavation and (lower) slab pour photos. I have done something kind of in the same category -- I busted out about 200 square feet of garage floor, excavated several inches of clay, then poured a new monolithic structural-grade slab in its place. My reason was not to increase head room (since I have ten feet ceilings), but rather, to have a stronger slab and a quality earth base to support the structure, to level the slab, and to isolate it from the rest of the house. It's been an enormous amount of work, though still far less work than Paul did. That being said... I don't want to rain on your parade, but it's obvious that you're embarking on a gigantic project, and I think you would be wise to reconsider your plan. You deserve credit for doing your homework to get a basic sense of what you need to do to make your environment work for you. However, as I've said to others before you now and then, sometimes the obstacles are just too great. Sometimes we live in houses/buildings/neighborhoods/towns/areas that are just not conducive to fulfilling our dreams. This doesn't mean we need to give up our dreams... But it sometimes does require us to reconsider how we're going to make those dreams come true. The most ideal conditions you could hope for to build a studio, budget permitting, would be to build a standalone building from scratch. This gives you the benefit of being able to engineer the thing right from the beginning, foregoing all the headaches of having to retrofit something that is far from ideal for the purpose. Do you have room on your lot to do this, and if so, would your city allow an auxiliary structure to be built on it? If not, maybe a little househunting is in order. Yes, I'm actually proposing moving if necessary. I'm not saying what you want to do is impossible, but I think you owe it to yourself to do all the research necessary to determine the wisdom of your idea. There's always an effort/dollar mark that defines when you'd be better off going to a different environment altogether vs. adapting your current one. Figure out what that is, and then you'll know whether or not it's worth the price you'll pay. One last thing... Don't assume that you'll be able to add the appropriate amount of mass to your existing ceiling. You need to do the calculations to ensure you won't overload and cause a deadly catastrophy. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but look before you leap. :) --Keith :mrgreen:

Fair enough, Keith.

Just had an excavator over. 1.5 feet of new headroom (gives me almost 9')and an egress window for $8000. Since we have a water problem which seems to be a ground water issue, the guy said he'd put gravel and drains and a pump in as well. When we first bought the house a year ago, we talked to a bunch of basement specialists who quoted us at around $10,000 to fix the water problems. My wife just figured on that number. I just freakin' saved her $2000 and she's psyched so the guys are starting in 3 weeks. They said it would take 2 weeks once they started. I'm pumped. Pretty cool stuff. Thanks guys.

That's wonderful that you've found an outfit that you're comfortable with to do this very intense job!! I do caution you against moving forward too quickly though... Having the sump pump system is probably a wise decision, but with the drain around the perimeter and the pump itself, you would be wise to plan, plan, plan so that you're not left with any challenging retrofit issues later. If you haven't already read every page of Andy Eade's Rotten Basement Conversion Thread, you owe it to yourself to do that now. Pay particular attention to his issue of placement of his interior leaf wall. I know it's tempting to just cross one bridge at a time... But with projects like these, you really need to plan your route as best you can from start to finish so that you minimize or eliminate the times you have to double-back. 8) That being said, this is really exciting, so I hope you take a lot of pictures of what is sure to be a heck of an invasive project!! 8) 8) 8) --Keith :mrgreen:

1.5 feet of new headroom

Wow that's great :!: :!: :!: That is going to be one dirty :x ugly :twisted: job, concrete dust, dirt and rock dust will get every where :roll: ... be sure to protect your house and isolate the mess. I've been told that when I cut my concrete wall to shut off HVAC even though dust will be in my garage & patio and not in house... the concrete dust will go every where. I'll echo Sharwards comments:

plan your route as best you can from start to finish

As a few decisions I've made (with money already spent) has me double thinking a few things before I even start building. Also are you planning on getting more then one quote :?: I “jumped” on hiring my architect… I won’t “hijack” your thread… I’ll be posting an update on my own thread shortly. I can't wait to see pics of your basement being excavated :D Marc

Yeah, I have 2 more guys comming over to give estimates. I've always been the "let's do this" type and jump when I hear what I want. Thankfully, my wife is the complete opposite and wouldn't hire her own father before she got 3 more estimates(not really, but you get the point). She's saved me from myself a number of times. If this guy is the one we go with(which seems to be the case because of the number of times he's done it) he'll start relatively quickly. He has a ton of experience doing this in town and I feel pretty confident. The cool thing is that we have to jack out the existing floor no matter what, so digging down another coupla feet won't be the main deal. In this case, I LUCKILY had a ground water problem. If we didn't, I certainly wouldn't get the go ahead from the Mrs. Thanks for the thoughts guys. Cheers

Just make sure they understand that you'll be putting heavy walls around the perimeter of the basement (or, if not, you'd like the option to do so at a later time), so anything less than structural grade footings (with rebar) around the perimeter won't cut it, and any access panels into the floor for the sump pump need to be away from the edge by about two feet so that you could erect a new wall assembly between the edge of the access panel and the existing wall. --Keith :mrgreen:

great tip about the pump access, Keith. Never would've thought of that. Any other suggestions to keep in mind.?

Yeah -- plan everything. Ideally you should have solid drawings of where and how everything will be constructed -- you'll probably need that for your permit anyway. Bottom line -- don't break ground until you know what and how you'll be building. Once you get going on that, you'll realize all the nooks and crannies you have to worry about. Have you absorbed all of Andy's thread yet? (There will be a pop-quiz. ;-)) --Keith :mrgreen:

You got guts, i'll give you that :wink: and a bit of money doesn't hurt either. For your ceiling, have you considered something like rockwool/drywall BETWEEN the joists? I did it and the isolation is Great! Not to mention very few reflections coming back off my low ceiling. check out my pics here. The pictures don't really show anything but the bottom Rockwool layer. I've got more pix if youre interested. In the mean time, Rock On! and DO make sure the contractors ISOLATE your downstairs for the job... concrete dust SUCKS to have floating around in your home. Good luck.