joey s studio build

Hello people. i plan to build a studio at the end of my garden. i want to achive good isiolation to keep out train noise which is approx 30 feet away. and not to annoy the neighbours approx 80 feet away. as i will be making rap hip hop rnb music. i love my sub. i have a garage at the end of my garden at present. well a poor excuse for a garage, so down it comes. i hope to achive a big control room, booth and a machine room however i am working slightly back to front. by this i mean i will construct the footings for the walls, the walls and roof of the outer shell as big as possible which is 30 square meters here in the uk to avoid planning permission. then i will plan the studio or control room to fit. i dug the footings by hand on my own a total of 75 feet by 1.5 feet by 3 feet. 3 8 yard skips including the old garage. £ 450. took 2 weeks. made the form work out of ply. cut it to 6 inch strips total £50 i then filled the bottom of the footing 1 foot with crushed hard core and compacted it, as it was clay. which was 5 bulk bags at a total of £200. dug the soak away 1.2 meter cube 6 meters away from the footings took a day. and run the pipe in. then made a footing round the edge. blocked it u with gaps to let storm water out. wraped it with a permable membrain and back filled the out side edge with pea shingle. put a piece of ply on the top and poured a few inch thick with slap with rebar and covered with soil. done. cost £150 concrete time i phoned round a few redy mix companies. however i wanted a pump because i was concerned about the drains in the alley beside the house getting damaged. found a guy who would do 6.1 meters of concrete £530 it was a 25 mix. the pump lorry was an extra £250. cool. so he told me to get a few bags of cement to prime the pump. i told him i would need at least 150 feet of pipe. he said 'thats no problem mate' , i said do i need any thing else. he replies 'no' . so he turns up with the concrete truck. proper nice fella says to me wheres the pump mate. i look at him and say have no idea , he says well he should be here set up already. so i say i was told that it would be between 10am and 2 pm and its 1. so he phoned the pump driver. its alright mate he s only round the corner. so the pump driver turns up. here we go moan moan moan moan moan. why did youbother getting a pump the concrete truck will fit down ther so i asked if he would like to take responceability for the drains 'no mate' well then 'well i cant do it' why 'my boom wont fit over the phone lines' i diddnt ask for you to use the boom i wanted a pipe. 'well i aint got enough pipe' why not at this point he turns to the concrete driver and says is that one of those trucks that mix it on site and the other driver says yes. and he says thats no good for a bloody pump. at which point i lost my temper and told him to go if he could not do it. i called the concrete company who i ordered the concretwith and he said he would talk with the pump driver. then the pump driver started saying well where can i wash out my pump. to which i replyed i diddnt know you had to. i know it might make senseto you guys who have had concrete delivered before but for me this was the first time i had had it delivered and no one told me. then he started moaning about putting the legs down on the truck as it would take up the hole road. at this point im pissed off. guess what he said next well if you want to use the pipe your going to have to help me unload them. what. ive been waiting since 1 pm its now 3pm and all because you couldnt be bothered to get the pipe off the lorry. so me him the other driver and my 2 brothers layed out the pices of pipe and he clamped them together. finally ready to go its nearly 4 now. all goes well in the end takes 35 mins. then we empted out the pipes hosed em through and empted the hopper on the back of the pump about 5 wheel barrow loads . all that moaning for that . any way all done looks good. had to do a bit of cleaning the next day with the jet wash because he left it in a mess , but to tell you the truth i was glad he was gone. next will be the walls which will be 8 by 8 by 16 hollow dense blocks with rebar and some kind of filling. i will post up some pics soon. as for the budget well. i plan to pursue producing as my career im only 23 so all i can earn is invested. after bills that is ha ha. any one who wants to jump in feel free all words appreciated. oh and i have rods book as well. i highly recomend this to anyone considering building or just macking there room sound better. thanks for reading joey

here is the old garage

footings with hard core and form work

concrete

Hi Joey, Wow, what a story! I'm glad everything worked out in the end. Looking forward to the rest of the story as it unfolds. You'll be pulling those wooden form boards out of the ground -- right? ;-) --Keith :mrgreen:

i asume you are worried about bugs keith? yes i will remove them just want to give the concrete a chance to cure i only used them as the the ground is running down hill and the back would have been lower than the front and would have not been high enough at the back to get it level. dont know if its clear in the pics

Makes sense to me! :-)

removed the form work. first course of dense concrete hollow blocks 215x215x440. filled with mortor. then damp proof course. then rest of blocks. 20 no 10mm reinforceing steel every 2 blocks all the way round filled with concrete. and the rest filled with sand. 3 reinforced concrete lintels above door. took me 3 weeks on my own. these blocks are heavy. about 600 blocs at a cost of £3.30 a block. 5 bulk bags of building sand £35 EACH 1 bulk bag of mixed ballist as above 40 bags of cement £ 5 a bag 5 gallons plasticiser £3 a gallon damp proof course £10 roll thats it fo now heres how its looking any way.

Looks like a professional job Joey, nice work. I can't believe the prices of some things in the UK! Those £3.30 blocks cost less than AUD$2 each here (that's about £0.90). And don't get me started on petrol prices. Still, we make up for it when we buy music gear locally.

thanks for the reply. fule s just gone up here £1. 9p per liter. :(

I'm paying $1.32 (57p in your money) for a liter of diesel. :D

Hi Joey Nice work. Totally with you on the concrete pump. Similar experience with a very arrogant <Insert Word /> who, after fleecing me of £30 "to take the crap away" still managed to leave a nice mess for me to clear up, on the side of the road and spots all over the side of the house where he must have swung the hose too close. I tell you, i'm so glad i'm back in control of my project, I had to use contractor's to get the shell up and watertight, and in the end i just wanted rid of them. Keep up the good work mate!

started the roof on my own (i dont advise this) but did get some help off of my bro when he see me strugling to lift 8 x 4 sheets onto the roof my self.(no helth ansaftey here) 2x8 mortered and bolted to wall as top plate. 2x10 roof joist nailedand tied 24 oc. 4 inch to nothing firing for water run off on top of 2x10. 18mm wbp ply on top 2x10 screwed. in between joist at ends filled with timber nogins. walls 1st coat damp proof paint needs 2 more coats. ive got a rubber roof covering system to fit however the glue cannot be used in 0 and below temp so ill have to wait. its fully covered with tarpalins. timber cost £1000 fixings £150 covering rubber glue £600 damp proof £30 next fix roof covering then level floor for hard core sand dpm steel concrete. heres some pics oh and some grafiti that some sod decided to do right across the back wall i might put a bill in to the british rail for repaint cost seen as tho they came over the train tracks. lol

hi all got the roof covered. :D still got to put on facia boards and gutter but at least nowits water tight. heres a pic not the best but my camera run out. merry xmas to all. joey

That is looking great Joey! Can't belive how quickly you have built that, and just by yourself - top stuff, man. I'm hoping to start my build in a couple of months as soon as weather turns a little nicer, and will be looking to do exactly the same as yourself. Keep up the great work, can't wait to see you work the inside. Oh, just edited my post to ask where you got the Blocks from and how many/costs as I can't seem to find any listed on building websites etc? Thanks.

thanks i got them from jewson £33 square meter had to phone not on website. but there price changes quarterly so check.

Hey Joey, I've seen your plans for your studio design, looking good. :D Couple of thing I wanted to ask.... Obviously your walls should have pretty good sound resistance, what are your intended plans for the ceiling/roof ? Have you managed to stay under 3m in height because I'm having difficulty in getting both space for sound resistant material and keeping a 2400high inner-room within the confines of a 3m total build height :(

hi thanks im planning to bulk the insde of the roof in between the joists with 3 layers plasterboard to make it dense with backer rod acoustic caulk and mud on each layer. yes i stayed under the 3 meters. what you have to do is use cross braces on the joist not nogins so you can then have your inner celing joist run inthe middle of the outter roof joist. hope this helps.

Joey Are you planning to put loft board/ply or mdf etc onto the roof truss joists and then put the 3 layers of plasterboard against that ? cheers

ive already got 18mm wbp ply on the roof so i'll just add the plasterboard. joey

ah yes, go it - just went back over the pics :oops:

no worries mate.

hi every one. ive been doing some working out for the design layout and where to pour the concrete slabs. however this has lead on to many other things to consider. rod if you could please give me some help on this it would be much appreciated. i am going to do the exchange chamber idea in your book, page127 and132/133/134. i have worked out that the controll room gear =2000watts or will do eventually. 4 people would =643.76watts. lighting =800watts. total 3443.76watts 3.443.76 x 3.4129 =11,753.20 btu's/hr fresh air for the controll room is 4 people so 4 x 15cfm = 60 cfm. the controll room dimesions are 12ft x 15.7ft = 188.4 ft2 or 12ft x 15.7ft x 7.16ft =1348.94 ft3. booth gear = 100w i person =321.89w lighting =400w total =821.89w 821.89 x 3.4129= 2,805.02 btu's/hr fresh air is 15cfm dimension for the booth are 4.3ft x 10ft = 43ft2 or 4.3ftx10ftx7.16 = 307.88ft3 exchange chamber dimension 4.3ft x 4.6ft x 7.16ft =141.6248ft3. ive attached a drawing of the proposed design. question 1 will the exchange chamber be big enougth? question 2 what size fan should i use to exhaust air from the rooms to the exchange chamber? question 3 would i have to have 2 duct runs to and from each room, giving a total of 4 ducts ? thank you for your time joey

rod ive found these units. http://www.airandwatercentre.com/store/ ... etails.htm mabe this through the wall ac unit.? http://www.vent-axia.com/awwebstore/sho ... tegory.asp with one of these inline fans on the exhaust.? thanks joey

[quote="joey"] question 1 will the exchange chamber be big enougth? It will assuming that the unit you install is sized properly. question 2 what size fan should i use to exhaust air from the rooms to the exchange chamber? I would use a multi speed fan and dump about 600 cfm min 900 cfm max into the control room - and would dump 1oo cfm into the iso booth. question 3 would i have to have 2 duct runs to and from each room, giving a total of 4 ducts ? It would be the right way to do it. I would distribute the supply air with 2 grilles over the seating area at the desk and 2 more about 1/2way between there and the back wall - and then do a left and right high return air at the very back opf the room. BTW - one thing missing from your calcs - and yes I did speak of this in the book - and that is you have to get the info for the humidity that the fresh air will being into you room as a part of that cooling load calculation. That is missing right now and can be a big number....... Rod