Johnp's studio - from the ground up

Get on the phone Dude - you may need that heater for longer than a week! :wink: :wink: Regards, Lou. 8)

Nothings easy these days.... TP suggested Gas Industrial Space heater generates more water and wouldnt do the job, to verify i called Gem and they said the same. TP suggested an electric heater and an industrial dehumidifier would "probably" do the job I think I will work on outside today and over the weekend and check with my buddy whose doing the rendering. He works in the trade and no doubt will know exactly what i need, and i'm sure may spot one or two other issues that need consideration cheers

One last point that I know you'll be grateful for, whilse your down at TP, get a couple of polythene dust sheets and meticulously mask up your door and window. Waterseal is a total bitch to wash off glass and plastic :twisted: :twisted: .... 'cos it's waterproof! :wink: :lol: :wink: Good luck, and great progress for you at the weekend. Regards, Lou. 8)

Johnp wrote:

TP suggested an electric heater and an industrial dehumidifier would "probably" do the job

Quite right - that's what I meant, sorry man, just rushing whilst converting midi to audio! You know how it is! :roll: :roll: Regards, Lou. 8)

Happy New Year everyone. not much to report on my build at the moment other than the decking an patio have been layed. I also transitioned to the 4th decade :D and wifey got me this geetar and i'm loving it Also, i've lost count of the hours of research i've done on air con and even had a guy come do a survey for quote. Bottom line, i dont want to spend the money on installation, i prefer to spend it on gear. So I've just bought this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mitsubishi-Ducted ... dZViewItem For you UK'ers, the seller has 3 left. All brand new. I'm working up north this week and drove to Leeds to pick it up. They are still packed in manufacturers crates andtook up the whole of my estate car :roll: More soon as i get the thing lifted into space and can start the framing cheers

hello mate. so how are you going to get it installed?

Hi Joey I'm doing indoor / outdoor unit and ducting etc, and fitting plenum chamber to indoor unit. Electrician will certify and isse certificate and a local air con engineer will pressure check pipework and commision. I've also found service manuals, wiring diagram and maint part list for spares cheers

Cant believe its been so long since i last posted. Most of the work has been in sorting the garden but here are some pics of the first layer of beef up of the outer roof, which is 18mm flooring laid on the joists. Not shown in any of the pics are the hangers that are above them, which are RW3 on hooks. Also not shown are the Air Con silencers - two for the supply and two for the returns. They are hung on cables to the outer roof truss The Air Con indoor unit has been mounted in the mechanical room which is actually bolted onto the back of the structure. I will get some internal shots of this before fnishing with exterior cladding. You can see the 150mm Techsonic flexi duct behind all that RW3 being stored in the studio. I'm off to the US on business over the next couple of weeks but task list when i get back is to beef up inbetween the joists with 2 x layers of 12.5mm plasterboard and then start the internal framing, which will be of the independent ceiling variety. I plan to have the joists resting on the new internal wall and sit in between the outer joists to maximise final headroom. cheers for now

good to c u're still active ;)

Thanks Ro, yes still here and still active, albeit as snails pace :( Just to close of this initial update, here are the shots of the internal air handler, supply/return dampers, fresh air feed into return and barometric vent on outside of building. I'll get a shot of the actual relief valve inside the main building once i get the Rockwool moved :wink: cheers John

Whose been a busy boy then? :wink: Looking totally fab so far dude, many congrats! :D :D Man - All those pics look so familiar, I even have the same white circular grills on the outside! :lol: Good luck for your build, and of course, your trip to the States. :wink: Travel safe my friend, Warm regards, Lou. 8)

Hi John, just a quick note to say thanks for sending me in the direction of Lou's build again, as i said I had started reading it but it's so long to load each page I hadn't reached the part with the air con diagrams, i spent a few hours last night going through the whole thread. Anyway seeing those diagrams has helped clarify for me what I need to do and the silencer boxes will also help ( thanks for posting so much Lou if your reading this). Your own builds looking good John , best of luck with it, Clunk

Hi Guys Some more pics of work to date. 1. Finished the outer ceiling beef up. I managed to get hold of 30 sheets of 2400 x 1200 x 12.5mm Soundshield from a friend. Much more dense than normal pboard and at £10.00+ a sheet, saved a small fortune. I also managed to get acoustice sealant, both in standard size which seems to go in seconds :D which i resolved by getting a carton of "trade size" foil packs but had to buy an appropriate applicator 2. started framing. using 150 x 47mm (6" x 2") framing which is approx 100mm (4") from outer wall. Bearing in mind that the slab also has 50mm upstands between it and concrete blocks, that should give me a pretty good air gap between frame and outer block and avoid all possiblity of flanking paths due to.... uhum... dodgy workmanship :D Aim is to fill frames with 150mm of RW3 and 2 x layers of 12.5mm Soundshield. I've used wire mesh to hold the Rockwool in the frame

more pics

one other thing..... If i've moved that Rockwool once, i've moved it a thousand times :lol:

johnp wrote:

one other thing..... If i've moved that Rockwool once, i've moved it a thousand times :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: At least its light in weight. Lookin good John peace Tom

Hi Johnp - hope your still around? This is an old thread, but I'm at this point now!!

johnp wrote:

Also, i've lost count of the hours of research i've done on air con and even had a guy come do a survey for quote. Bottom line, i dont want to spend the money on installation, i prefer to spend it on gear. So I've just bought this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mitsubishi-Ducted ... dZViewItem

My head hurts so much over the Aircon side of things? Can you tell me what model this is? Also what the air handler and where that was sourced from? Your help most apprecriated Thanks

One2one2 wrote:

Hi Johnp - hope your still around? This is an old thread, but I'm at this point now!!

johnp wrote:

Also, i've lost count of the hours of research i've done on air con and even had a guy come do a survey for quote. Bottom line, i dont want to spend the money on installation, i prefer to spend it on gear. So I've just bought this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mitsubishi-Ducted ... dZViewItem

My head hurts so much over the Aircon side of things? Can you tell me what model this is? Also what the air handler and where that was sourced from? Your help most apprecriated Thanks

Hi Yes still lurking here. The system is Mitsubishi Mr Slim SEZ Celing concealed (2.5KW). I got the indoor/outdoor complete package as a job lot of eBay, for about £500 if i recall. Install is pretty easy however, you will need to get a registered HVAC installer to get the unit running. The outdoor unit comes pre-installed with R410A gas for upto 7M (i think) so you can hire vacuum pump and hook it up. However, i would pay the small fee to get someone in to do this part, they can verify leakage etc...oh and its the only legal way to do this in our country :-) After all of this, my personal view is that I could have done with more velocity air flow, so if i were doing it again i would go for a more powerful indoor unit. I used the totally unsceintific apporach of getting a system that was at the right price and available. With the silencers it is TOTALLY silent...not a single noise can be heard from the airflow but its a little light. I must get some more pics uploaded of the 98% finished project...i'm using the studio now but of course there are those niggly finishing jobs that hevtn been done yet all the best some useful links http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Air-conditioni ... rigeration http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ductw ... d_883.html http://www.dereksairconditioning.co.uk/

Thanks Johnp That's helped, finding out that it can be done without being hugely complicated as taken a load off! So does that indoor unit allow for your fresh air ventilation aswell - so both your fresh air and air con is handled buy the indoor unit? Also what plenum chamber design did you use? Thanks for links as well. Kind regards

One2one2 wrote:

Thanks Johnp That's helped, finding out that it can be done without being hugely complicated as taken a load off! So does that indoor unit allow for your fresh air ventilation aswell - so both your fresh air and air con is handled buy the indoor unit? Also what plenum chamber design did you use? Thanks for links as well. Kind regards

No Problem, happy to help So if you consider that the Indoor Unit has a Fan assembly thats going to "Send" conditioned air and "Return" stale air. Normally, the indoor unit would fit above the celing and literally pump direct into the room (at least thats what the mistubishi manuals described in their diagrams). So if you put the indoor unit away from the celing, then as you say you need a plenum. What I did was had a local steel company fabricate a plenum chamber that had a 6" Send and a 6" Return and I also has them attach a 4" Fresh Air feed on the return side. So the idea is that you blend the fresh air with the retrun air which then gets conditioned. The whole thing cost about £40. I gave them the indoor unit and a week later picked it up with plenum attached. I removed and made sure there was no swarf and also sealed the plenum with acoustic sealant for good measure. The fresh air connection currently feeds direct from within the external structure i built. One of the outstanding tasks is to finish this of with external cladding and a section of 4" ducting to actual outside air. I introduced a barometric pressure relief (as per Rods book) but to be honest, since my HVAC design was not scientific and considering that I'm not a professional builder, then i suspect theres a bit of leakage here and there. However, I would love to do a pressure test, according to a builder friend of mind, this is required by building regulations now in the UK. Certainly, isolation from outside is stunning (IMHO)

Ahh, So you had the plenum physically attached to the air handler - interesting. See I was thinking of mounting 2 indoor units in the outside corridor, one for each room. Then send and return ducting for each unit going to each room - with a plenum inside the ceiling, well 2 plenums, 1 for a return and 1 for the send for each room - 4 plenums in total. Then somehow feed fresh air into the air handler or the send ducting. But your way I could have the air handler and the plenum together in the corridor and then duct to each room, I also won't have to build 4 silencers! Will have to run 20m+ ducting for the fresh air supply - as i'm quite a way from an external wall. But would have to do that anyway. I'm interested in knowing how the plenum was built to control isolation needed. Thanks for ur help, good food for thought!

i think you still need to silencers to keep the sound from leaking out (or worse in) but yes, having the ducts outside the space definitely simplifies things.

So here are some pics of my indoor unit I took at the time when trying to figure this out for myself. I had 4 x silencers (2 send & 2 return) that are inline with the ducting. I bought them for about £80 each from lindenlab in High Wycombe. I cannot hear a single noise from the air flow (mechanical or otherwise) hth