Preliminary Design Considerations-Basement Aspiring to Amaze

[Gregwor]

Apologies if I wasn't being clear but my understanding is that the contractor will be doing what you describe. They are redoing most of the ductwork in the basement, so I'll make sure for the run that we tap off of (assuming this is what we end up doing) that they start with a bigger duct so they can split off for the studio, and maintain the existing size for the rest of the run. I will not be doing this work - I'll be doing the silencer boxes and possibly HRV/ERV/whatever I end up with for that solution.

So what happens when you're sweating your ass off in your air tight room and the rest of the house is comfortable? There will be a thermostat in the main living area. This is what will control your air handler. Unless you zone the system (which is pretty much impossible without a variable speed fan, your room will always get neglected by the system.

So far he is saying it's not a problem, but I still need to run several new things by him. We shall see.

I wouldn't trust this guy. How on earth can he say it will be fine without you giving him numbers and him doing calculations to figure out what the rest of your house needs and then checking to see if the air handler will provide all of that? Sounds like he just wants your money and then when the job is done and things are uncomfortable, is he really going to warranty his design using existing old equipment? Nope.

I hear ya. I'm not sure how one would be able to calculate that, but fwiw there will be two doors/entrances into the studio, both into my supremely leaky basement, and certainly we're not figuring this stuff out for the rest of the basement...

Hypothetically, let's say you could recirculate air in your room via the doors (blocking the openings off with fans that would move the air of course), legally, you can't exhaust stale air into a living space. So that's off the list of possibilities.

that would pretty much be a high level description of the plan?

Fair point Unfortunately my timeline and budget are not going to allow me to do this 100% how I would like, but it's gonna be the best I can do under my circumstances.

Why don't you just throw up some gobo's or basic 2'x4' panels and stuff some insulation in the joists above and use it as it is while you make a plan and save up some money to do it safely and correctly. Imagine going through all of this and having it perform horribly. So much so that you physically can't stand to be in the room due to humidity and temperature issues. Then top that off with poor isolation. You will be better off throwing together a ghetto set up. Right now, I'm working in a ghetto set up and as uncomfortable and not perfect sounding as it is, I'm still making money that I can put towards my dream studio. May I remind you that your thread says "Basement Aspiring to Amaze"? Don't get overwhelmed. I think it's pretty clear that myself and others are here to help in any way we can. You just have to be willing to take the necessary steps to do this correctly. Unless someone is holding a gun to your head, there's no reason you can't makeshift a space together to work out of while you finish your design and save some money up.

Greg

[danieljvogel]

So what happens when you're sweating your ass off in your air tight room and the rest of the house is comfortable? There will be a thermostat in the main living area. This is what will control your air handler. Unless you zone the system (which is pretty much impossible without a variable speed fan, your room will always get neglected by the system.

That's obviously a major concern. As it is right now, when we run the AC, it runs pretty consistently to cool the rest of the home. My lady knows that it's possible that we would have to keep the upstairs cooler if this becomes an issue, and she's ok with that. I guess I just find it hard to believe that this isn't possible - I've seen other threads on this forum where people, even in basements in the south, tapped off their existing systems and have great studios. Here's one that I have bookmarked and is somewhat similar to my situation:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=18680

I wouldn't trust this guy. How on earth can he say it will be fine without you giving him numbers and him doing calculations to figure out what the rest of your house needs and then checking to see if the air handler will provide all of that? Sounds like he just wants your money and then when the job is done and things are uncomfortable, is he really going to warranty his design using existing old equipment? Nope.

I have not done a good job describing our interactions, or that he's done great work for me before. True, he readily admits he does not have experience with studios, but he's trying to understand and do what I'm asking, and he's a very standup guy with a reputable company. The issue is me conveying information to him, not him giving me unrealistic assurances or promising everything will be ok.

Hypothetically, let's say you could recirculate air in your room via the doors (blocking the openings off with fans that would move the air of course), legally, you can't exhaust stale air into a living space. So that's off the list of possibilities.

I think this also might be an issue of miscommunication, and will be greatly helped once I have the layout in better shape. I'm of course only saying I'll leave the doors open when I'm not using the room, and the rest of the basement will be conditioned as well. I guess I would think all of the air would be shared - I wouldn't be exhausting into somewhere else, it would just be an open area.

Quote:
that would pretty much be a high level description of the plan?

I feel like this is real progress

Why don't you just throw up some gobo's or basic 2'x4' panels and stuff some insulation in the joists above and use it as it is while you make a plan and save up some money to do it safely and correctly. Imagine going through all of this and having it perform horribly. So much so that you physically can't stand to be in the room due to humidity and temperature issues. Then top that off with poor isolation. You will be better off throwing together a ghetto set up. Right now, I'm working in a ghetto set up and as uncomfortable and not perfect sounding as it is, I'm still making money that I can put towards my dream studio.

This is a very fair point, but at this point I'm trying to avoid it. It may be inevitable, but for a variety of reasons, I'm going to push forward, at least for now

May I remind you that your thread says "Basement Aspiring to Amaze"? Don't get overwhelmed. I think it's pretty clear that myself and others are here to help in any way we can. You just have to be willing to take the necessary steps to do this correctly. Unless someone is holding a gun to your head, there's no reason you can't makeshift a space together to work out of while you finish your design and save some money up.

Touche! In the end, you may be right. I'm not trying to half ass this, and many of the issues here are that I just don't understand the HVAC stuff in particular. On the other hand, I don't want to make perfect the enemy of the good, or whatever that saying is. My worry is that if I don't finish this in the window that I have open right now, it will be years before I have another chance, especially with a baby on the way.

[JLDrumStudio]

What a great thread guys. Its really making me think about my studio build. The mini split system with the HRV might be the thing I need. Now to do more research on the HRV install.

[danieljvogel]

OK, I'm back! And ready for more abuse...I mean reality checks

What a great thread guys. Its really making me think about my studio build. The mini split system with the HRV might be the thing I need. Now to do more research on the HRV install.

Glad to hear it, and you'll probably have a better set up than I do

Anyway...got some more information. The HVAC guys are coming either Thursday or Friday so I need to get this as sorted out as I can. It's sink or swim time for me

So I've pretty much ruled out the whole house HRV unfortunately. We just don't have the budget for it. And it's not a matter of saving up more money - we have other financial needs coming up (see: baby, plus a new car for the lady, etc.). So, I need to do the best I can with what I have.

I spoke with the HVAC contractor, we are able to put a return into the room, on the existing system. Also, he's hoping to be able to run a new duct line into the room, so it won't be "tapped" off an existing line like I originally thought/described. So if I'm understanding this correctly, that will basically take care of the heating and cooling requirements, but now my issue is once again ventilation.

Is the only issue with the single room ERV that I posted earlier (such as this: https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-FV-04V ... B000XJNZ1Y) that I would have to build additional silencer boxes? I agree that that sounds like no fun, but it also seems like a DIY and cost effective way to solve my problems. I feel like I could mount it in the room, and it has two 4" ducts that would have to go outside, which seems achievable. Reading more, it also appears to be compatible with a Y connector to a single 5.5" duct, so in theory it would only be two additional (and not ridiculously huge) silencer boxes. Does anyone have experience with such a thing? Are there any other options that I should be exploring?

I apologize if I'm being frustrating (I'm pretty frustrated myself!) - I would love to have more time and money and do this, but I just don't. Of course, I'd also love for it not to be in this terrible basement, but here we are

[danieljvogel]

Hello!

OK, HVAC dudes are coming tomorrow, so any last minute advice or warnings (especially about the single room ERV thing) would be greatly appreciated! I figure no matter what, I'm having them put in the supply and return (location still to be determined) and I can always have them come back if I absolutely need to change something. Part of the reason for the rush is because they are moving around all the crappy ductwork, which needs to happen before we can continue framing other rooms, and especially my father in-law's room.

In other news, I have a first draft of a SketchUp model, after many hours of work! I'm getting the hang of the program, and mostly using groups instead of components, so I hope that's ok. I'm including two PNG files, but it's saying the actual SketchUp file is too big to upload. I can put it on DropBox if that would be helpful. Anyway, I know it's a super crazy shape, but this is what I had to do to carve out as much space as possible for myself. The little cubby area in the top left of the second pic is to be used as a painting studio, because of course I can't just make music in here I'm thinking that my desk/computer/speakers will go on the wall near the top of the second pic (with the green insulation), and I'm trying to figure out the soffits, if angled walls are doable, etc. I also know I need to add some walls and obviously haven't done a lot of other work, but I thought the layout was at least done enough to get initial impressions.

Rough measurements are that the longest open part is about 14' 6" from where I want to put the desk to the wall behind, and about 11' 9" across from the door to the wall in front of the furnace.

I'm working on another post soon with more detailed questions and will continue to work on the SketchUp design, but I wanted to put this out to follow up on the HVAC situation and get any initial thoughts on the layout. Thanks a million as always!!

-Dan

[Gregwor]

Hey Dan!

Good work with SketchUp so far! I personally don't use Groups much, but there are certainly times they come in handy. 99% of the time I use and prefer components. If you want to copy something but don't want it attached to the other components, just copy it, right click it and make it unique.

Sorry I didn't reply when you were asking. I haven't had internet for almost 3 weeks. Finally got it hooked up today!

I understand that you're trying to make the best out of the space you have. Having said that, remember that you need a symmetrical listening position (at least for the front half of your room. So if you need to build walls or move doors to make that happen, do it. I don't fully understand where you're picturing the mix position. Maybe draw in some speakers and some furniture (including your father in laws bed) to show what rooms are being used for what.

How did the HVAC stuff go? You're correct in saying that you will need the extra silencer boxes. The financial part isn't the issue, rather the space to fix the boxes. I know you think they are small, but they aren't :-S

Greg

[danieljvogel]

Greg! No worries, on the delay, and thanks for the response!!

Basically groups were the first thing that worked for me so I went with that, but I have much room to improve

Glad you're back online, I'm jealous of the time unplugged

I understand that you're trying to make the best out of the space you have. Having said that, remember that you need a symmetrical listening position (at least for the front half of your room. So if you need to build walls or move doors to make that happen, do it. I don't fully understand where you're picturing the mix position. Maybe draw in some speakers and some furniture (including your father in laws bed) to show what rooms are being used for what.

I'm starting to feel more optimistic, but that could change at any point. I've attached a new pic below with a very general idea of where I'm thinking the mix position will be. I still need to figure out angles, wall lengths, etc., but the circle is where my head would be, theoretically - about 38% the length of the room. Then I did 45 degree angles off of that, and tried to make it work. My thought is I could make the angled wall that doesn't hold the speaker, at least on the furnace side, so that it could move out of the way when I need to go back to the painting area. But this is all still very much up in the air. Also I'm still working out how/where I would add other room treatments, and I don't want to screw myself too badly if I can avoid it.

How did the HVAC stuff go? You're correct in saying that you will need the extra silencer boxes. The financial part isn't the issue, rather the space to fix the boxes. I know you think they are small, but they aren't :-S

It went! I think it's ok, and believe me, you've already successfully disabused me of the notion that the silencer boxes are small I did want to run some thoughts by y'all on the main supply and return boxes. So the HVAC guys, at my request, basically ran the lines to either side of the furnace, and left them hanging there for me to mount when I figure out the silencer boxes. Hopefully you can kind of see that in the other attached pics. So basically my question is, do I need to build two walls to enclose the furnace, or can I consider the outside wall/foundation to be the first leaf of the system? Obviously the latter approach is the more attractive, but I don't want to screw my isolation. I'm less concerned about sound getting out the side of the house than I am about it traveling upstairs. So I could do my best to beef up the area above the furnace, but there will be parts that I can't reach. My thought was that it might work for the whole furnace area to be considered the "void" between my two leaf system, so then I would just need to build the inner wall for the studio and would only need once silencer box. Does that make sense? And as you can hopefully see from the pics, I've tried to leave a good amount of room for the silencer boxes, in areas that are sort of out of the way. I think I'd still be ok if I need to build the second wall to seal off the furnace, but obviously that will be more lost space and more work, so it would be awesome to not have to do that

And also, I do know that I need to provide access to the furnace - still working on that but basic plan right now is to have removable modules in the wall - basically same material that fits super snugly in an opening, but has grab bars so they can be lifted out of place for the furnace to be serviced.

[Gregwor]

I've attached a new pic below with a very general idea of where I'm thinking the mix position will be. I still need to figure out angles, wall lengths, etc., but the circle is where my head would be, theoretically - about 38% the length of the room.

You may find that your soffits won't be deep enough with the framing and speaker enclosure/ventilation to hold your speaker. That may result in you bringing that entire front soffit wall assembly towards you. Note though, your mix position is based off of your inner leaf dimensions, so your position should stay the same. Your soffit angles may just change. And, that leads to my next point.

Then I did 45 degree angles off of that, and tried to make it work.

Check out some soffit design detail notes on some forum threads. You'll see things like this (this is via soundman2020):

1) The speakers should not go in the corner, nor on the line that divides the corner. In other words, if your walls intersect at 90°, then draw a line out from each corner at 45°, and stay away from that: don't put your speaker exactly on that line, since it implies that you'll be getting the same artifacts from the side walls as from the front wall. Put your speakers either outside or inside of those lines. More commonly you'll want your speakers "inside" those lines (more towards the center line of the room).

2) The "38% of room depth rule" is not a rule, but it is a useful guideline for a starting point. You'll generally want to have your listening position a bit closer to the front wall than that location, but do be aware that you might be getting into problematic SBIR territory there. (You can treat that, to a certain extent).

3) Keep the mix position away from 25% and 50% of room depth, and try to stay between about 32% and 44%

4) You can angle your speakers differently than the "textbook" 30° angle: Anything in the range 25° to about 35° will work well under most circumstances.

5) Keep the speakers as far apart as possible, wile not violating rules 1 and 4.

6) Keep the mix position at a good distance from the speakers, within the range of about 1m to about 5m. Further away is usually better.

7) Don't put the speakers at 25% of the room width: that's a modal null for some frequencies, and a peak for others. Try something more like 28% to 34%.

8 ) Make the front baffle of your soffit as wide and tall as you can, within reason. The width should be at least three times the diameter of your low frequency driver. In other words, if you have a speaker with an 8" woofer, then you want the soffit baffle to be at least 24" (60cm) wide. Wider is better.

9) Do not put your speaker in the middle of the soffit baffle: Offset in both directions. In other words, the distances from the acoustic center of the speaker to each edge of the baffle should be very different, by at least 20%. So for example if your speaker axis is 30cm from one side of the baffle, it should be more than 36cm from the other side, less than 24cm from the bottom edge, and more than 44cm from the top edge. (Rough distances, for illustration only...). Larger differences are generally better.

10) Make the baffle as massively heavy as you can, and as rigid as you can.

11) Make the structure inside the soffit (the framing that holds the baffle and speaker in place) as rigid and massive as you can.

12) Mount the speaker inside an enclosure box that is either a very tight fit, in order to keep the speaker rigidly fixed in place, or mount it on suitable rubber pads, to completely decouple it from the the box. Carefully choose the properties and dimensions of that rubber, to make sure the speaker is still decoupled down to at least one octave below the speaker's low cut-off frequency.

13) Take into account that speakers need a lot of space behind them for cooling, and a path through the soffit for cooling air to flow.

14) Rear-ported speakers need special attention: Do not overload the rear port, acoustically, with an enclosure box that is too small, or un-ventilated, or un-damped.

15) Damp the hell out of the soffit interior! Fill it entirely with suitable damping if you want, except for the cooling path.


Also, angle your soffit baffles so that the speakers fire across the tips of your ears, not your eye balls like you currently have drawn in your SketchUp!

My thought is I could make the angled wall that doesn't hold the speaker, at least on the furnace side, so that it could move out of the way when I need to go back to the painting area. But this is all still very much up in the air.

How would you maintain your isolation with this movable soffit? This would be a crazy design. I'd try to avoid that if possible. Maybe you could make your soffit wing out of a flat door?

Does that make sense?

I'm tired, so maybe that's my problem, but I don't quite follow your explanation. Maybe a crappy drawing in SketchUp would clarify it for us?

And also, I do know that I need to provide access to the furnace - still working on that but basic plan right now is to have removable modules in the wall - basically same material that fits super snugly in an opening, but has grab bars so they can be lifted out of place for the furnace to be serviced.

Don't make things large enough to just service the furnace -- make it big enough to REPLACE the furnace.

Greg

[danieljvogel]

Thanks a ton for the detailed info on the room layout! I will be spending a bunch of time figuring that out in the next couple of weeks, and will definitely be sure to keep all of this in mind.

Any thoughts on my question about whether I need to build a second wall in front of the furnace, or if I can consider the outside wall/foundation of the house as the outer leaf?

For the other stuff:

You may find that your soffits won't be deep enough with the framing and speaker enclosure/ventilation to hold your speaker. That may result in you bringing that entire front soffit wall assembly towards you. Note though, your mix position is based off of your inner leaf dimensions, so your position should stay the same. Your soffit angles may just change. And, that leads to my next point.

Awesome, I will definitely work this into my plans. The rest of the info is super helpful, and like I said, I'll incorporate it all into my eventual design. I think I have an ok space to work with at this point.

How would you maintain your isolation with this movable soffit? This would be a crazy design. I'd try to avoid that if possible. Maybe you could make your soffit wing out of a flat door?

I'm not doing a good job of explaining this, and it will hopefully make more sense with a better drawing, but basically the left side of the listening position will not really be doing a ton of the isolation work, because it's all isolated behind and to the side of it. So this will be interior to the room, and my understanding is that it will mainly be for creating the RFZ listening area, not for isolation. And note that it's only the "second" angled wall, in order to have an easier pass through to the painting area off the back. The speaker enclosure will be permanently installed. But if this isn't workable I can figure something else out, just seemed like a possibly good solution.

Don't make things large enough to just service the furnace -- make it big enough to REPLACE the furnace.

Good call - fortunately it's less than a year old, but it should be doable to provide space for replacing it, hopefully in like 20 years

[Gregwor]

Any thoughts on my question about whether I need to build a second wall in front of the furnace, or if I can consider the outside wall/foundation of the house as the outer leaf?

As long as your recording space has an inner leaf and outer leaf, you're good to go. Draw those leaves up and you'll find any flaws in your plan quickly.

I'm not doing a good job of explaining this, and it will hopefully make more sense with a better drawing, but basically the left side of the listening position will not really be doing a ton of the isolation work, because it's all isolated behind and to the side of it.

See my first point.

So this will be interior to the room, and my understanding is that it will mainly be for creating the RFZ listening area, not for isolation. And note that it's only the "second" angled wall, in order to have an easier pass through to the painting area off the back. The speaker enclosure will be permanently installed. But if this isn't workable I can figure something else out, just seemed like a possibly good solution.

This isn't your "interior room". You can call these your treatment walls, or false walls. They aren't sealed or anything. Heck, they might not even have drywall on them. They're just there for acoustic treatment, not isolation.

I look forward to your progress! Hopefully these answer help!

Greg

[danieljvogel]

Awesome, thanks as always! Back from Thanksgiving break, hoping to get lots of planning and start of some of the basic construction stuff between now and Christmas. Whew!

So I'm still trying to figure out this deal with the furnace. I found another thread that had a pretty similar issue - link and quote are below. Based on that, it seems like my best bet is to build the outer leaf wall in front of the furnace, and to basically not consider the outer wall of the house to be the outer leaf on that side of the room. Does that make sense? Or would I still be ok just building the inner leaf wall and consider the outer wall of the house to be the other leaf? In the second scenario, the whole furnace and ductwork would be in the "void" between my two leafs. In the first scenario, all of that would be behind both leaves. And does it make a difference that all of my ductwork is insulated, rather than just metal?

Also, I was wondering about fastening the base plates for the wall to the floor. I read that you should run three beads of acoustical caulk on the lumber prior to fastening to the concrete floor. Is that all I need to do? They don't need to be decoupled in any other way? That's going to be the only part of the studio that touches the rest of the house, and my understanding is that that's fine, but I wanted to make sure.

Link to thread mentioned above:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 0&start=30

Quote:

Quote:
I was originally thinking I would build a soffit around it with double 5/8s and have it occupy the space between the foundation wall and inner leaf for isolation purposes but then realized it would still be open on top so I think this might be pointless,
Your basic plan is correct, but you also need to fix that "open on top" part, by enclosing it 100%.

Quote:
now I'm thinking that I will just leave it on the outside of the inner leaf and port it into the studio through a vent muffler which I was going to do anyway.
If you did that, it would be in between your two leaves, and become part of your air gap. You do not want to do that! The air gap is where all the serious resonance business happens, inside an MSM wall, and since your HVAC duct is basically just a resonant box itself, made with thin metal walls, it will gladly pick that up and send it all over your house! Not to mention that any noise that is already present in your HVAC system will now totally bypass your outer leaf, and be present in the air gap....

So you definitely do need to soffit up fully, to make it part of the outer leaf, not leaving it inside the air.

Thanks as always for any and all help!

[Soundman2020]

Also, I was wondering about fastening the base plates for the wall to the floor. I read that you should run three beads of acoustical caulk on the lumber prior to fastening to the concrete floor. Is that all I need to do? They don't need to be decoupled in any other way? That's going to be the only part of the studio that touches the rest of the house, and my understanding is that that's fine, but I wanted to make sure

- Stuart -

[danieljvogel]

Sweet, thanks! For once that's what I was hoping to hear

Any thoughts on the other questions?

[danieljvogel]

Hey y'all! Just wanted to provide a quick update because I'm still working on this! To the surprise of nobody, including myself, I am way behind schedule. More of the work of renovating the rest of the basement has fallen to me than I had hoped, and then we had some pretty bad flooding while it rained super hard for several weeks, so I've had to spend a bunch of time dealing with that. Trying to keep my spirits up, but I haven't done anything at all on the interior to my studio, and have instead had to focus on the other rooms in the basement. Bummer. Oh well, clearly this will not even be close to done by the time the baby arrives, but I'm going to keep at it...and I will end up in the finished studio thread come hell or high water! Happy New Year to all...and if you're bored and want to chime in on my questions about boxing in the ductwork, I'm still planning to get to that

[Gregwor]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck! Keep chugging away at it and you'll be done before you know it! I too am feeling so behind on my build. But, I keep telling myself that every 10 minutes of work I do, I'm that much closer to being done.

So I'm still trying to figure out this deal with the furnace. I found another thread that had a pretty similar issue - link and quote are below. Based on that, it seems like my best bet is to build the outer leaf wall in front of the furnace, and to basically not consider the outer wall of the house to be the outer leaf on that side of the room. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense to put your outer leaf in front of your furnace.

And does it make a difference that all of my ductwork is insulated, rather than just metal?

Depending on where it is, you really should have it insulated. Outside of your outer leaf it doesn't matter as much but in that location, it can help with actual furnace/HVAC noise. Inside of your outer leaf, everything should be insulated.

Greg