Story of building my studio (with pictures..)

[TDGmusic]

Hi.

SITE OFFLINE due to updates...

Follow the building of my studio. Not everything is commented, but we're still busy building also!

A lot of idea's came from this forum! Thanks!

[Ro]

Hoi Tjerk!
(another Dutchie on the forum )

Been checking out your diary, looking good!

I noticed a few things which I'm concerned about.
- The floor:
It's "floating" on isofix I see. Does it really float? The studio is on the 2nd (or was it 3rd?) floor, so floating might be a good idea. But does it really work?

- Windows
Oops, wrong pieces of glass used here. You used standard thermo glass (Insulight by Pilkington) Having 2 of those pieces placed between your CR and LR will result in a 4-leaf glass system.

Where's your design?

cheers!

[Soundman2020]

It's good to see a build in progress, and it seems to be moving quite fast!

But like Ro, I'm curious about that floor, and whether or not it really does float. What is the loading that you calculated will be on those pads (kg/cm2)? And what percent compression does that loading produce? Does that allow for worst-case overloading, if you happen to have a lot of people and equipment in the room? And what is the target resonant frequency for that floor?

I guess you must have used two different types of pads. The spacing of the pads around the perimeter, which will support the entire mass of the walls, doors, windows and also the inner ceiling, seems to be exactly the same as the spacing in the center of the floor, which won't be supporting much mass at all, so I guess the pads around the perimeter must be extra heavy duty, while the pads under the center are just light duty?

And from the first photos for the "Day 11", it looks like you only have one single perimeter board around the edge of your floated floor, which is going to support the entire weight of all the walls, the ceiling, the doors, the windows, and the acoustic treatment. Is that safe? Can one single perimeter board support all of that weight? Does that really meet code in your area? I'm surprised that that would pass inspection.

Also, why are you building a three-leaf wall? Your "Day 1" shows the outer leaf, which is the building itself (I guess that is only one leaf in that wall, right? If that's a two-leaf wall, then you are building a FOUR leaf system!). Then "Day 2" shows you building a second leaf next to that on, built inside-out, and the last photo on "Day 11" shows you building a THIRD leaf on top of the floating floor!

"Day 17" clearly shows the be three-leaf roof construction: The building roof is visible in the back, then there are another two frames visible. You show drywall going up on the inner frame on that same day and subsequent photos,then on Day 54, 60 and 61 you show the drywall going up on top of that "middle" roof frame.

So you most definitely have a three-leaf system. Why did you do that? You said that you plan to record drums and bass guitar in there, so why would you build a three-leaf floor, wall and ceiling system that has reduced isolation in the low frequencies?

The exact same issues with the floating floor and the three-leaf are visible in the photos for the CR construction sequence.

And like Ro said, you also seem to have a four-leaf window.

- Stuart -

[TDGmusic]

Hi, thanks all for your replys.

Regarding the glass; The thickness of the glass is 6-8 with 12 mm air in between. My guess it wil isolate enough for the in and outside world (in the control room and outside the control room). I could have ordered 3 6-8 and 3 8-10 or so, but this will suffice i guess. Also the space between the control room and the recording room is pretty wide, about 60 cm. Between the control room and the sitting area there are indeed 2 pieces of glass. Between the control room and the recording room are 4 pieces. With a gap of about 60 cm. My guess? no worries...

Regarding the floor: do not forget there's a complete 94mm thick frame under the floor you see. It is quite solid i might say. I did add a second floarboard to it, to make sure the seals are all airtight. This will also split the load of things upon that floor.
Also, the walls are on top of those floorbeams. The load is split enough over the complete area. And the drawings I found here on this forum did not even have a OSB-board in between the floor-beams and the wall beam. Inserting an OSB-board in between will definitly split the load of the wall and ceiling over a bigger area of the carrying floor beams.

The floating floor is indeed resting on Isofix, i could not find anything that would add some isolation of some sort.

Tjerk

[Soundman2020]

Hi Tjerk. Glad you responded with more details!

Between the control room and the recording room are 4 pieces. With a gap of about 60 cm. My guess? no worries...

It's still a 4-leaf system. 60 cm air gap is good, yes, but 4-leaf is 4-leaf, and especially with that glass that you have, I have a feeling that you will still have some isolation issues at low frequencies. What is the calculated resonant frequency of that window assembly?

Regarding the floor: do not forget there's a complete 94mm thick frame under the floor you see. It is quite solid i might say.

I'm sure it is solid, but the issue is safety, and there is an awful lot of mass resting on that! I'm still curious as to how it passed inspection. It seems strange that an inspector would approve a sole plate being supported by only half its width.

Also, the walls are on top of those floorbeams. The load is split enough over the complete area.

I'm not so sure that that's the case. You have massive loads on relatively thin wood, that is supported only at a few points. I doubt that your load is spread evenly. What is the total weight of the floating assembly (floor walls plus ceiling, plus doors, plus windows, plus treatment, plus equipment, plus furniture?

Since you didn't answer the questions about loading and deflection, my guess is that you didn't actually do the calculations, and you are just hoping that you got it right. I really hate to say this, and I'm not trying to belittle you or the work you did building that studio so far, but if you did not do the calculations and place your pads accordingly, then the chances are pretty high that you didn't get it right, and your floor is actually not floating at all.

Did you ever read this thread on floating floors?: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... f=2&t=8173

I also noticed that you didn't answer the questions about the three-leaf construction, which is another potential major problem. From looking at your photos it is clear that your entire build is a three-leaf system, yet you don't seem to be concerned about that at all. Therefore I can only assume that low-frequency isolation is just not important to you.

And the drawings I found here on this forum ...

What drawings are you referring to? There are lots of drawings on this forum. Please can you give us the link to those drawings. I'd like to see what they do show!


- Stuart -

[Ro]

Hi, thanks all for your replys.

No worries, we love to! Thank you for sharing
first thing: you said you use this forum as a guidline for your design/build. I get the feeling you didn't do enough research. Since this is your first post, I'm worried about that. Sorry to see you've already started your build. We can comment on your studio if you like (heck, we already did) but I kinda get the feeling it's already too late.

Regarding the glass; The thickness of the glass is 6-8 with 12 mm air in between. My guess it wil isolate enough for the in and outside world (in the control room and outside the control room). I could have ordered 3 6-8 and 3 8-10 or so, but this will suffice i guess. Also the space between the control room and the recording room is pretty wide, about 60 cm. Between the control room and the sitting area there are indeed 2 pieces of glass. Between the control room and the recording room are 4 pieces. With a gap of about 60 cm. My guess? no worries...

you're "guessing" a lot here. Better to KNOW than to guess, I always say.
You will experience soundleaks with that window. There's mass, but it's at the wrong locations.
The resonance of the pieces of glass will be around 2000 (6mm) and 1500 (8mm) Hz. You'll get TL drops there.

Regarding the floor: do not forget there's a complete 94mm thick frame under the floor you see. It is quite solid i might say. I did add a second floarboard to it, to make sure the seals are all airtight. This will also split the load of things upon that floor.
Also, the walls are on top of those floorbeams. The load is split enough over the complete area. And the drawings I found here on this forum did not even have a OSB-board in between the floor-beams and the wall beam. Inserting an OSB-board in between will definitly split the load of the wall and ceiling over a bigger area of the carrying floor beams.

Did you have an architect look at this? Are you guessing or are you in the know? Adding OSB in between the frame will not divide the load, it'll only add mass.

The floating floor is indeed resting on Isofix, i could not find anything that would add some isolation of some sort.

another guesstimated solution.

Serious Tjerk, you could have benefit from posting your design here PRIOR to actually building your new studios. It's a matter of keeping your fingers crossed now. Btw, what area is the studio located? (I'm located in Leeuwarden)

[TDGmusic]

Hi guys,

Thanks for being so concerned about my safety, but I can assure you, it's totally safe, as my construction engineer told me. He completely calculated the design and was happy with the outcome. Who am i to question his expertise?

I'll leave it with that,
Kind regards

[Soundman2020]

It's not just the safety we are concerned about: it's also whether your studio will be any good or not, an whether the isolation and acoustics will actually work the way you hope they will. Maybe your structural engineer says your floor design is safe, and I guess the inspector agreed, since it did pass inspection, right?

So let's assume it is safe: But will it work?

You still didn't mention how you calculated the floor loading on those pads, or what the target deflection is, and the target resonant frequency. You also didn't mention the three-leaf issue, or your room ratio. Those are things that can make or break your isolation, and your acoustics, and those are concerns that are evident from your photos. I'm surprised that you haven't commented on them, since they are rather major issues, and we've mentioned them several times here.

- Stuart -

[Ro]

Hi guys,

Thanks for being so concerned about my safety, but I can assure you, it's totally safe, as my construction engineer told me. He completely calculated the design and was happy with the outcome. Who am i to question his expertise?

I'll leave it with that,
Kind regards

Hai Terk. I can imagen thinking "what a couple of SOBs, I was only showing my stuff". Hope we didn't offend you or anything, we ARE indeed concerned about safety, design, construction and all that. You came to the right source, but we're just "overnight experts" so we'll shut-up now, m'kay?

keep them photos comming!

ps. where you at?