John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

We have severely screwed up on our HVAC system and need someone that knows what they are doing with recording studio HVAC systems in the philadelphia area to pay us a visit to see what we need and give us an estimate. Looking for an established professional at this point. I really don't know where else to look for this, I hope this is in the right area. Sorry if it is not. It's my first post. But I have lurked here for many many years.

Thank you to anyone who can help.
Lee McCartney

Hi Lee. Welcome! Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things!

What exactly is it that you need doing? If it is installation, then yes, you undoubtedly need a local guy to dot hat, but if you need someone to design your HVAC system,it does not necessarily need to be a local guy. I have designed HVAC systems for people thousands of miles away, whose studios I have never visited, and that method works rather well, actually.

So if you cold be more specific about your needs, you might find that you don't need a local guy after all. Or maybe you do!


- Stuart -

Thanks Stuart..

I think I got everything covered now. Sorry for the lazy post.

We have a 2,000 square foot facility in Thornton PA. It is comprised of 2 control rooms and 1 vocal booth and a bathroom upstairs and a Live room, foyer, server room downstairs.
We have 1 main HVAC system in the attic with I guess the compressor outside. I do not know the technicals of the unit. We also have supplemented that with a Mitsubishi split system that is used in the A room and the Live room but are connected.

Not only is the system noisy (vibration/turbulence) but it's also not zoned. So as the A room (which has a ton of gear in it) heats up, the other rooms stay normal. Turn on the air and everywhere else gets ice cold. Only one thermostat in the upstairs hallway. So we are looking for a zoned system that is quiet and doesn't transfer sound between rooms. We also need a system that can tightly regulate humidity since we have a lot of instruments in our main rooms. We have already lost the tops on 2 of our acoustics.

We need and installer and designer, preferably local if possible. We need someone to come thru to give us an estimate so my partner can see what he's looking at. I have no idea of pricing but I'm guessing the job will be over 20k..

Ouch! It sounds like you have a whole bunch of issues there. Somebody didn't do their job at all when they designed your HVAC system.

From what you say, it certainly sounds like some major surgery will be needed. The way to fix the issue where sound is passing through the HVAC system between rooms, is with "silencer boxes", also called "baffle boxes", on the penetration where the ducts pass through the room walls. But not just any old box: they need to be designed for your specific studio. They have to not only stop the sound getting through, but also slow down the air enough that it does not make any noise itself. Moving air is noisy, slow moving air less so. If it comes out the registers at less than 300 feet per minute, then it should be reasonably quite. 100 FPM is even better. But slowing down speed of the air also means that you need to move a larger volume of air (cubic feet per minutes) in order to get the right amount of ventilation / cooling / dehumidification for each room. In other words, you need to move a lot of air slowly, not a little bit fast.

That's one problem.

The second is the zoning: that can be fixed relatively easily, with variable electric dampers, suitable sensors in each room, and a system controller. Its a bit more complex than just that, but that's the basis.

Third problem is vibration: That's just shoddy design and shoddy installation. There could be several reasons for that, but the most logical would be: no isolation mounts (vibration mounts) were used on the AHU/compressor, and/or the ducts were not properly decoupled, and/or the ducts are not lined on the inside with duct liner, and/or the ducts are too small for the job, and/or the AHU is overloaded, and the fan and compressor are overworked... and/or a few other things.

You need not just any HVAC guy, but one who understands HVAC as it relates to studios.

I would suggest that you contact someone like Rod Gervais to go take a look at your place, and tell you what you need to do. As far as I know, he's located in Connecticut, so not too far away from you, and I'm sure he could get over to where you are. He would be the best guy I can think of for the job, since he knows studios inside and out, and he knows HVAC inside and out. He wrote a book about it, in fact...

You can PM him by clicking on this link:
http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/ucp.p ... pose&u=478

He hasn't been active on the forum for quite a while, but I hope that will get through to him. If you don't get an answer then let me know, and I'll try to contact him for you. PM me.

Either way, please let us know what happens here, and how the issues are solved in the end. It's always good to see happy conclusions to sad stories.


- Stuart -

Thanks Stuart. I actually spoke to him about a year ago when we were redoing the live room. Yep, I said redoing.. Ripped it out and started over again. I have a very unique situation. Or, maybe it's not so unique. I have a partner that is the major controller of what happens. He is the money guy, and it is more of a Hobby for him. EVERYTHING you are talking about was all things I tried to get accomplished in the beginning. I felt that money should be assigned to infrastructure and not gear. I was pretty much Veto'd. Actually almost got into a fist fight with the contractor. Who is a good guy, but didn't know me all that well at the time and my partner was controlling everything. Anyways... There is so much wrong with this building that could have been done right but he was not hearing it.. Soundproofing, flooring, HVAC, Electrical, everything. Really none of it was done with a studio in mind. I've been dealing with a general contractor, an AV guy, and a commercial HVAC guy. Most of them are great people. They just don't know anything about studios. It's been a struggle and hella frustrating. Mainly because he has spent almost 2 million building this place and company that I am part owner of. I'm the music guy, and he is a neurologist and a lawyer that loves music and loves collecting things even more. And it feels so top heavy.. too much gear. too many problems with the building. So we are correcting things as HE gets to finally see what's bad with his own ears or eyes.

I kind of knew everything that you're saying except for the "moving lots of air slowly". Well I had the other HVAC guy install more vents to split up the air in order to calm it down some. It's definitely much better now. But that makes sense since it's much quieter to have a larger computer fan at a slower RPM moving the same amount of air as a smaller fan spinning faster.

So basically theres no one local huh? Rod is a couple grand a day plus travel and I don't think I can talk him into that, not until he really understands what needs to be done. He has approved me getting someone in there to see what can be done. I'll reach out to Rod again and see what he thinks.

Thanks again.