enhancing finished basement room to be a studio in MA, USA

hi, i am new to the board and have been reading through it and dozens of others to learn about soundproofing. this forum is an incredible resource and i've learned a lot from what i have read in other's posts. i hope to get some advice about construction and materials. the reason i am here is because i recently bought my first condo and i am looking to minimize the amount of sound exiting a room that will be used for band practice, demo recordings, and beyond. The priority at this point is to prevent sound from travelling up to the second unit (second floor) in the house. because i own the property i am looking build out something solid and be economical at the same time my starting budget is around $1000 but plan on making enhancements in the months to come, so i can invest more in the project over time if i need to. to me, it seems like the ceiling is the weak link and should be treated first. would it be better to add a layer of drywall and greenglue(or resilient channel) to the ceiling be a good solution to eliminating upward sound, or would it be better to frame out a drop to the ceiling and add drywall? would you recommend fitting all the walls with either method? all of the doors in the room are hollow core. are doors like this totally useless with my goal in mind? can drywall or another material be added to add mass to the door, or would it be more beneficial to just buy new doors? should i worry about adding insulation to the floors at this point? would it do the same to put the guitar amps off the ground? i've heard of building a floor with wood over hockey pucks, what about putting amps on hockey pucks? i am mainly looking for help in method. getting new doors and adding a layer of green glue and drywall seems like the way to go, but would it be sufficient in blocking out sound? these are some physical details that i can't readily show in pictures: - the condo is in a 3 family house that was converted to condos - each unit is on it's own floor - we own the first floor and two rooms in the basement - the room in the basement that is going to be enhanced is at the front of the house - directly on top of the rooms being finished are a bedroom, and the house's foyer - the basement is already finished, but the stud/drywall is built about 1 foot in from the cement walls to make room for the gas meters/pipes. it is fiberglass insulated. - the floor is composed of tile over a cement slab, no wood subfloor. - the houses heating is hot water....no vents (although there are some remnants of old ductwork in the unfinished part of the basement. - the house is situated with the front facing a busy main road in the city. - the band that would regularly be practicing is a 3 piece (2 guitars and 1 drum) and typically plays loud, but could adjust for the new surroundings. - the ceiling height at its highest is 7ft, and 6ft 9in at the lowest i can obviously add more details, but to try and keep it short that should give a good background about the place. the following is a floorplan, and a picture of the room. i labeled the walls a through e to try and make sense of it. a slightly bigger picture can be seen here as you can see in the pictures the ceiling is different heights in different places. looking at this picture from inside the closet on the "E" wall you can see that the ceiling is dropped about a foot for pipes and wires:

equivalents Welcome to the forum, sounds like you've gone through the stickies but let me reassure you, you've got more reading & study ahead of you. :twisted:

the reason i am here is because i recently bought my first condo

Congrats

because i own the property i am looking build out something solid and be economical at the same time my starting budget is around $1000 but plan on making enhancements in the months to come, so i can invest more in the project over time if i need to.

For the level of "sound proofing" you are seeking $1,000 is not a realistic budget, even a "starting budget". Try atleast $3,000 to $5,000. 1st $30 you should spend would be on Rod's book available in the stickies.

to me, it seems like the ceiling is the weak link and should be treated first. would it be better to add a layer of drywall and greenglue(or resilient channel) to the ceiling be a good solution to eliminating upward sound, or would it be better to frame out a drop to the ceiling and add drywall? would you recommend fitting all the walls with either method?

Well... I think you've got to make a real analysis of what you can build, what you're willing to build and how much money & time you are willing to spend to achieve your goal. Add a layer of drywall & green glue with or without RC will add to iso BUT the last pic you posted looks scary. Are those 2x4 ceiling joists on there side? If so or if not adding weight to a ceiling safely means calculating the dead-load of the ceiling before adding material. IF those ceiling joists are on side OR are over 7' 3" then I would consider the PITA of ripping them down regardless of constructing a "sound proof room". Do a search for an online span calculator. Also we measure "sound proof walls" with STC (for voice only) and then for music with TL @ a low frequency like 50Hz, again please do a search on this web site for definitions of those terms (if you've not already) Drop ceiling... Kinda... build a new inner ceiling that rests on inner walls, inner and outer walls and ceiling do not touch. Maybe: Rip out ceiling, determine and design how high of a new ceiling you can build going for as much and maybe more height then you already have. Maybe you can move a few pipes or build around them better. Maybe or maybe not rip out existing walls. If it's all concrete your good. Hopefully there is insulation in the stud bays of inner walls already. Before you put new ceiling in, beef up floor above via drywall in the joist bays attached to floor. We've nicked named this proccess as "beef up".

all of the doors in the room are hollow core. are doors like this totally useless with my goal in mind? can drywall or another material be added to add mass to the door, or would it be more beneficial to just buy new doors?

Just buy new or recycled solid core doors.

should i worry about adding insulation to the floors at this point? would it do the same to put the guitar amps off the ground? i've heard of building a floor with wood over hockey pucks, what about putting amps on hockey pucks?

NO insulation to floor. NO floating floor (over hockey pucks or anything else) Please do a search on this topic or look in Rods book. Guitar amp on a floated assembly really won't make a big diff on sound transmission through wall. Bass amp and drums floated do help.

am mainly looking for help in method. getting new doors and adding a layer of green glue and drywall seems like the way to go, but would it be sufficient in blocking out sound?

IF you're exisiting ceiling is OK to add weight to then MAYBE. I would not trust it though becasue if you were to build this way and it was not good enough you would run out of available dead load from existing joists, then the only thing to do would be to rip out what you've added, add beef up to joists bays under floor above, then rebuild inner ceiling. PLUS it sure does look like the existing inner ceiling is solidly attached to other structure in the basement. Making a sound isolated room requires a "room within a room" design where the inner and outer leaves/frames/wall are decoupled as much as possible. AND each room needs to be airtight... who knows how air tight your outer walls and ceiling/floor is until you rip it out. Airtight means you need to think about air exchange or not being able to breath with 3 or more people in the room. Also would be a really good and safe thing to do is research your local building codes for can and can't do and think stronly about getting a permit. Although viewed by some as a complete PITA, this will force you to plan out everything in advance avoiding possible design oversight/buidling mistakes and will require someone else to objectively look at your plan and work for safety of you, your family and neighbors. Marc

thank you for all your quick response and a wealth of information. there is a lot to digest and definately a lot i haven't thought of, like the load that the existing ceiling could handle. i need to do more reading and i hope to come back to this thread soom with a more solid plan. from the things you mentioned - i am not sure about the ceiling joists. i will check those when i am home.....i suspect they are not standard 2x4s, now that you mention it - the rest of the walls are 2x4 studs, and are fiberglass insulated - i need to check it but the walls may go all the way up to the floor of the 1st floor, past the ceiling - if working out from the room, the current construction is drywall, studs/insulation, air, concrete i knew this project would be more complex than i thought.....and i was right! thanks again, i will be back with more info

Hi equiv, I'm on my Treo this morning, so I can't see your drawings yet. Marc's greeting and advice is excellent... A tough act to follow for sure. Honestly, I don't see how you're going to make this work. Band rehearsals in a condo?! :roll: With acoustic drums? On a shoestring budget? Honestly, spending the money on a digital drum kit and having everyone play with headphones is more realistic. Congratulations on your home purchase. I'm just being honest in expressing my opinion that a multi-family dwelling and soundproofing for band rehearsals are largely incompatible. Keep studying here and definitely buy Rod's book. --Keith :mrgreen:

i think it is possible, but yes it will require work. i am also willing to adjust my budget to meet the goal. what i see working in my favor is: - the condo exists in what used to be a one family house....recently converted to 3 condos. so it isn't the type of situation where i am in a big building with neighbors in the next room. they are 2 floors up. - we are on a busy road in the city, so there is already a good amount of street noise to compete with upstairs. the basement is actually pretty quiet already from the outside of the house. you don't get a much street noise from there..only from the window, that i plan on doubling up. - sound getting into the first floor isn't a problem, but being loud in the 2nd and 3rd floors is. so, we still have the 1st floor as an additional buffer. - we currently practice in a big rehearsal complex with full on 4x12's and acoustic drums. we plan on turning down for practice in the new house, but, you are right, the drums are always the same volume. so, i think it is possible, but i don't know what you guys may have run into in the past. also, other than actual construction on the walls/ceiling, do things like bass traps have a big effect on cutting sound transmission?

also, other than actual construction on the walls/ceiling, do things like bass traps have a big effect on cutting sound transmission?

NO. Anything that will make the room sound better via acoustic contraptions like bass traps will decrease the amount of iso you get from the walls/ let more more sound pass through. Some acoustic contraptions help sound pass through the wall a lot with a triple leaf effect like a slot wall and some acoustic contraptions effect iso loss very little like a cloud or DIY panel absorber. For bass traps iso loss depends on which type of bass trap you choose to build. When designing for acoustics, beefing up the MASS or AIR in iso wall construction around the acoustic contraptions (depending on contraption type and amount of iso loss you can live with) is the best course of action. Marc

Please study Luftweg's "Basement studio-room project in Boston area" thread and Andy Eade's Rotten Basement Conversion Thread. While it may seem that basements are ideal studio spaces, they have as many disadvantages as they have advantages, water intrusion potential and vertical clearance being two of the biggies. Many basement projects are stopped before they start due to code restrictions on clearance issues alone. Your basement is already considered living space, so that may be helpful... Unless the space wasn't given an occupancy certificate, in which case........ Who knows? You've got a lot to learn about mass-air-mass (the two leaf rule), weak link effects, low end transmission loss (TL), resonance, coincidence dips, etc... That's not meant as an insult: when I started here two years ago, these terms were all Greek to me too. ;-) The more you learn, the more I think you'll come to a conclusion that this project just won't pencil out. Maybe I'm wrong, and I welcome that being proven... I just hate to see one naively making expensive assumptions about what needs to be done. Please know that we're here to help... And, at least from my perspective right now, that sometimes means a reality check. --Keith :mrgreen:

I finally looked at this thread from a real computer, so I can see all the images now. It looks like that existing finished ceiling is installed on 2x4s that are rotated on their sides. :shock: :? The lumber looks pretty fresh, too... So I'm guessing that finishing work was done prior to the sale of the property, perhaps within the past year or so. I'm going to bet that basement conversion was done without a permit. :evil: (Proven wrong, I'll gladly eat my words.) I highly doubt that window can be classified as an egress window. I sure hope whoever sold you that place didn't count that room as a bedroom -- if they did, it's probably illegal (and for good reason). The more I look at this, the less I like it... :roll: Sorry for the constant buzz-kill posts -- just calling 'em as I see 'em. --Keith :mrgreen:

the condo was a recent renovation. they did the whole building, legally, but you are correct. this room isn't considered living area. when the home was on the market it was listed as a 2 bedroom, but once we got the home inspection they said that the rooms in the basement weren't legal living area. in the end we got these rooms as exclusive use, but are not counted in our square footage. as part of the master deed we do have verbiage that allows us to build/modify the space however we want, as long as we don't compromise the house structure

Your inspector definitely had his eye on the ball. The seller should be ashamed. He listed it as a 2 bedroom?! That's disgusting. Not "living area"? Not included in square footage? That means it's not considered habitable space. It's just storage area, or workshop, basically. That limits your options considerably, regardless of what the deed says. The deed doesn't supercede building code. There's a closet in that room, eh? I can't believe that basement finishing was legal. Closet = bedroom, and there's no way the city would have allowed that without an egress window, higher vertical clearance, etc. Plus, 2x4 ceiling joists on their sides? No way. :evil: If I were you, I'd consult an attorney. You might have a case against the seller and the listing agent, and possibly your buyer's agent as well.

what do you think my limits would be as far as use? from my vantage i can really use them for whatever i want, but obviously not bedrooms...nor would i want to. before we could close the floorplans had to be updated with one of the rooms in the main floor being the bedroom (directly above the basement room i am looking at). the price was negotiated, but it was clearly mis-listed by the sellers agent and thinking about it, the basement was most likely done w/o a permit, although from what i understand the rest of the house was done legally. he was probably hoping for this to be a good "value add", which for me it was because it looks like i should be able to practice and make some recordings in there. we had many chances to walk away from this, but the location was perfect and i like the rest of the layout. i was looking through the two other basement studios you referenced, i need to in more detail, but i wish i saw them before i posted this one. a lot of good information. have you ever thought of taking the final products and putting them up on a wiki or something like that?

It's just storage area, or workshop, basically.

Sharward, it could only be considered storage, not workshop because in order to "work" in a room it needs to be habitable (at least that's what Florida building code is). Another thing to note is that houses are sold all the time with non-permitted additions/work. Many workarounds for the sale are available and sometimes there are none. When I recently renewed my insurance there was a box to check IF owner had done an addition without permit/no inspection, meaning they would still insure the house with further inspection and PITA stuff to owner. Also had a friend who enclosed a patio without permit, sold the house, did not rip down the work and they got through the sale with modification to county record of lot... I do not know all the details, just know it was done. I am not an expert in home sales or legal stuff to that effect but it seems to me if the listing agent was smart he could have easily worded the sale contract to cover his and sellers butt for the non permitted addition. IF your building code is similar to mine and once you find out min height to make a room habitable for your local building code you might be able to rebuild the room with at least a good part of the room above min height. Not all of the room has to be above min height. In a finished attic space where the ceiling angles down at the sides the only part of the room that counts as habitable space is the area higher then min height. Thing is the room would still be habitable IF you have at least 70 square feet above the min height regardless of actual floor space. Sad thing is after looking at the picture you posted, it sure does look like the room could have been finished above 7'6". For whatever reason it was not done... I'll suspect it was part of the plan by who ever renovated the house to 3 condos to finish the basement BUT they did not pay attention to details as they renovated. I'll guess what ever pipe work, electrical work and other things behind walls and above ceiling in this room are new service for yours or the other 2 condos in the building. Maybe the "new service" could have been installed better and out of the way of height of room. Maybe you could still move them the gain height, BUT messing with your neighbors water, electric or other service would at least be interesting if not impossible. I see no way out of this without getting a permit, which is what you should do anyways (although as you know some don't) Marc

equivalents wrote:

what do you think my limits would be as far as use? from my vantage i can really use them for whatever i want, but obviously not bedrooms...nor would i want to.

guitardad72 wrote:

Sharward, it could only be considered storage, not workshop because in order to "work" in a room it needs to be habitable (at least that's what Florida building code is).

Your local building department has the answers to all these questions. Different codes apply to different parts of the country -- even two cities right next door to each other could (and often do) use different model codes. I cover this a bit in the "Permits, Codes, Licenses -- and WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!" thread. My suggestion is that you take your floorplans and your photos to your local building department and ask for a sit-down with a plan reviewer. Show them the challenges you face and express to them that you'd like to see what your options are for legal and safe uses. Ultimately you might be able to make yourself a studio down there, but I doubt it would have the level of isolation necessary for acoustic drums without a serious five-figure investment and significant upstairs neighbor inconveniences, such as rerouting plumbing.

equivalents wrote:

have you ever thought of taking the final products and putting them up on a wiki or something like that?

No time for such thoughts. ;-) But seriously... There does seem to be a market for some "teach me how to do this right" materials. The threads here are a wealth of information, but they tend to be quite verbose (and, yes, I'm referring to myself! ;-)), so they're not always the best reference material. Instead, mostly, we learn through the experiences of others. Rod's book is an excellent resource -- if he had written it a couple of years sooner, I might have saved six months of education/planning/replanning on my project. If you haven't purchased his book already, do it.

guitardad72 wrote:

. . . it seems to me if the listing agent was smart he could have easily worded the sale contract to cover his and sellers butt for the non permitted addition. . .

One would hope, for their sakes... :roll: ...But with the run-up in real-estate in the past few years, a lot of newbie agents have hit the scene, trying to make the "easy money" (in quotes, because it's anything but easy, especially for a newcomer, that's for sure). The thing that I think makes this so egregious is the fact that the (presumably) unpermitted work in the basement was done just prior to the sale. This isn't a matter of, "oh, some previous owner did that eons ago" or "yeah, the previous owner did that a year or two ago and lived with it since then." Nope -- they did it to illegally maximize their profit on the backs of a first-time buyer. :evil: I'm disgusted. :( equivalents, please keep us posted with your next steps. Remember that the more you share, the more others will learn. 8) --Keith :mrgreen:

thanks for the advice. i will definately come back with a little more info as i think some of these things through. hopefully sooner than later.