building studio (slab on grade), request info on floor.

oh yea and the plan... this one is a lil dated, i since made the machine room a tad smaller (the small room on the parking pad side) and added another small room to mic cabinets/a singer or whateva. drum room is top left sliding door access on that bevel from the main room control room will have sliding doors on both bevels - one - access to small vocal room, the other to the main room - normal door for access to the machine room. haha would have been easier if i just labeled the picture..

Oakdown You make me jealous. Lovin the work...especially the night shots. It tells me you are going at it hard. I hate that we are losing daylight ever so fast because I would be out there until ten every night if I could see Radiant floor!!! I am sure all of us wish we had that Congrats Tom

TomVan wrote:

Oakdown You make me jealous. Lovin the work...especially the night shots. It tells me you are going at it hard. I hate that we are losing daylight ever so fast because I would be out there until ten every night if I could see Radiant floor!!! I am sure all of us wish we had that Congrats Tom

hey thanks tom! - yah this week has been crazy, and i've put in my fair share of work (; but it sure is nice seeing things move ahead. slab was poured for the remaining rooms today and looks great - we beat the rain which was also great, altho i have a couple of the later pours under polyeurothane - the finishing concrete guy assured me it would be fine. I just finished reading up on your post as well, and it looks like your project is moving ahead at a fair clip as well, it's awesome seeing the different methods of doing things (thanks mostly in part to this site) - like i've never seen that footing on a roll thing before! the radiant floor thing should be sweet, altho in all honesty i'm more worried about chucking a good multiroom HVAC system in (after making the rooms toight) i think cooling will be a bigger problem than heating! but who knows, I guess i could run cold water thru the pex during summer too, don't know too much about those whole systems yet. but i figure user comfort is important - being warm when it counts and cool when it counts. thanks for reading (; i'll keep posting pics as stuff changes up.

after a couple more rainy weekends I was able to do a bit more work on the studio... started framing, the initial plan was to build the frames lying flat...(14 foot high, with a 16 foot bottom and top plate (with a second top plate staggered as to not match up exactly)... but the more we (my father helps me) thought about it, the more it seemed pretty impractical to stand up such large frames after the construction - especially just the two of us!... so it was decided to build them in place.. which is still a little tricky given their height, to keep things straight/aligned etc, but we managed to frame two 90 degree corners.... the hardest part of working so high is manipulating the damn scaffolding which we rented at 50 bucks a week.. it doesn't come with wheels... so yea.. you can imagine everytime you need to move that thing. heh... i'm thinking of buying one with wheels, for all the inner walls and stuff too - altho i doubt i'll be building right to 14 feet, maybe some 12/13 foot walls tho where the stand might come in handy. nothing like a nail gun too... makes the elevated work go so much quicker. you'll see in the last pic the studs without the top plates added, we got those done before shutting it down for the night...

Looking great, oakdown!! 8) Looks like we were both doing framing today! ;-) Hey, in my neck of the woods, ten feet is the maximum vertical cavity allowance. You may need to add firebreaks. That may be difficult in your case because you'd have to figure out some way of sealing off the cavity between the wall frames about halfway up. :roll: --Keith :mrgreen:

Oakdown, Thought I would give this a bump and see if you are still alive. Very very curious how its coming. Tom

Ohhh yeahhh, I remember this one. 8)

hey thanks for the interest guys.... construction definetely slowed down during the rainy season on the island, but i got a lot of the framework finished up, with the exception of a couple areas of complication - to finish up the more complicated areas and for the truss work, I went with a neighbourhood contractor who offered his services and whom i had seen there work. It would have been just to much for me to try and handle 40ft trusses with my father at 14ft heights (to maintain an open floor plan). I still have to sheet the exterior with another layer of plywood before the siding, the doors are mounted in backwards (ie: they swing inwards currently) and the windows are just mocked in place (till the other layer of plywood. the septic system is in the ground - but not connected to any toilets yet (as they won't reside in that main studio building).... money is getting scarce but i'm getting close enough to the point where it's boxed in, and i can go month to month building the interior rooms - without getting wet heh. as usuall i'll prolly have a lot more questions going forward! especially with dealing with the "exterior" ceiling. (insulation at the base of the trusses). anyways for the pics! I have some other pics i can post later of the other side... also, i originally wanted to 3 - one piece windows, but the custom price sizeing would make it astronomically expensive. - this look isn't so bad - and has grown on me, i will of course need another set for the interior wall/room.

Wow, that looks great: :-) And I really like the six windows -- more than I think I would like three. The wall looks taller with the windows stacked like that. It will look awesome when finished.

hey thanks sharward... yea the windows grew on me too. you are also right about the firebreaks - we have the same rules in our area. I do have a simple question about the external roofs insulation (MAM sitch) and another about insulation in general. so basically it's open concept the trusses span from exterior wall to exterior wall, leaving no load bearing columns etc in the middle of the building- I thought this easiest for doing my "interior room" construction. now it would be easy to mount 5/8 plywood or something of the like - to the underside of the trusses and install the insulation on top of that - but the problem i see in doing that is breaking up the MAM situation i'll have in all other areas. because for my studio built rooms - all self-standing structures, it's gonna be two layers of gypsum then the insulation on top... so from inside the studio room upwards - that would be a combo of gyp/insul/- air gap - plywood/insul - which defies the MAM rule? unless there is another way to suspend the insulation in place (with netting?), and install the plywood on the top side of the trusses (lots more cutting and screwing around). the other question is with installing the insulation in walls in general - is it just the squeeze of the insulation that keeps it in place? i can't imagine adding the plastic over top - to me that seems like it would act like a giant drum skin interfering with MAM - or do you use netting to hold it in place? or is the plastic fine? health risks without plastic? heat loss without plastic? i'm sorry if these questions have been asked before, i guess they are the most pressing for where i'm at.

Oakdwon, Dying to take a peek inside. Had the same thing on my end as far as the rain goes. Today its sunny and will open the doors. For the roof/ceiling MAM I caught myself right before I put the roofing shingles on. I ended up putting two layers of plywood on before the shingles so I wouldnt have to cut and fit sheetrock between the rafters. I am using twine and staples to hold my insulation in place. Dont want it to vibrate loose over time. You will have to ask the pros about plastic over the insulation. From what I understand you dont want to do that. But I have seen a lot of people do it Looking very nice Tom

Not sure what you mean by "plastic," but you definitely don't want to wrap your insulation in plastic sheting or film... The insulation as to be able to breathe (i.e. air has to be able to pass through it) for it to be considered "air" in the Mass-Air-Mass equation. Plastic "netting" or plastic/vinyl "straps" is fine to hold it in place. Twine is probably OK too. --Keith :mrgreen:

TomVan wrote:

Oakdwon, Dying to take a peek inside. Had the same thing on my end as far as the rain goes. Today its sunny and will open the doors. For the roof/ceiling MAM I caught myself right before I put the roofing shingles on. I ended up putting two layers of plywood on before the shingles so I wouldnt have to cut and fit sheetrock between the rafters. I am using twine and staples to hold my insulation in place. Dont want it to vibrate loose over time. You will have to ask the pros about plastic over the insulation. From what I understand you dont want to do that. But I have seen a lot of people do it Looking very nice Tom

Tom, Now that you've done this work - how areyou handling the veltilation of the roof itself? That's a code requirement.......... Just curious, Rod

Rod, Good question. One of the topics on my thread. Not only code but it will help keep the building cooler in the summer. I built some silencers. One for fresh air to the studio and one for venting the attic space. The attic space silencer is on a thermostat, set at 90 derees F. I built a mini silencer for the output at the other end of the building. Tom

thought I would update this since it's been a while.... I haven't made too much progress... well visibly \-: Previously there was just 5/8 plywood on the exterior, I supplemented that with another layer of 7/16 OSB, staggered so "expansion" gaps never line up, a little bit of a drag dragging the scaffolding around the building to reach the top heights but we managed. I then did pine tongue and groove eaves right around the building, (once again dragging the scaffolding around the building!) and then black papered the thing... (yea with the scaffolding bit too... haha). I installed the windows properly/finally. and most recently with the help of my father built the roof over the loading bay, it will most likely get some pine t&g accents underneath as well, with some exterior lighting. not much exciting has happened on the inside, electrical panel is in and mounted to a "inner" wall of my machine room , but not wired to the street yet - plan to by this winter. no inner rooms have been constructed.. inside is not insulated, but all the firebreaks are in on the exterior walls, basically it's just a big ol' box. I want to get it totally sealed up for this winter, finish the upper eaves with pine t&g and install the door(s) properly/finally. I also have cedar siding for about 1/2 the building, but as I don't have gutters yet - I don't want to put it up for sake of splash damage heh. then with power perhaps I can start working on the inside a bit more. I'm still pretty much month to month financially with what I can get done, so progress isn't steller, but allows me to build at a comfy pace with what I can afford. sadly one of the doggies died from the pics above. ): he was a good fella. anyways on with the pics! I need to visit here more often way too much inspiration from the other builds I see going on.

Oakdown, Many a times I thought of finding out how things were coming along. Great to see you are still at it. You have a great thread my friend and hope many can watch and learn. The inside will be awesome I know. As the blind man picked up his hammer and saw!!! Full steam ahead. Great winter project now!!!! 8) Peace Tom

TomVan wrote:

Oakdown, Many a times I thought of finding out how things were coming along. Great to see you are still at it. You have a great thread my friend and hope many can watch and learn. The inside will be awesome I know. As the blind man picked up his hammer and saw!!! Full steam ahead. Great winter project now!!!! 8) Peace Tom

hey thanks tom, yeah it's slow but steady (; I think if I looked at the whole big project as one big "incomplete" i'd get a bit bummed... but I just focus on one thing at a time - and it slowly comes together... one day music will come from it, and not the sound of nail guns! just trying to build it as best I can! as for the learning bit, I have a lot to learn to myself! and these forums are terrific, I have to do a lot more reading on HVAC as I want to get that sorted before I start throwing the rooms together. cheers.