House built around studio design/build thread

[Gregwor]

I'm sure these need tweaking. I need to do the window detail next but I think it's going to be a way bigger job than these ones. I believe I will have to do it in a 3D detail like in Rod's Build It Like The Pros book.

Anyway, here are the details so far!

Interior MSM Traditional Wall Version 2 Detail.jpg

Interior MSM Inside Out Wall Detail.jpg

Exterior MSM Traditional Wall Detail.jpg

Exterior MSM Inside Out Wall Detail.jpg

Door Assembly Detail.jpg

Ceiling Cross Sectional Detail.jpg

Obviously the insulation is not to scale, but I figure it makes the detail cleaner for the building permit people. Also, specific details like caulk, cleats, screws, etc are omitted for the same reason.

Greg

[Gregwor]

Small amount of progress here. I've drawn up the basement portion of the studio (phase 1 for my building permit). It's the basic layout that I'll use for drawing the electrical and HVAC plans for the permit approval. It's obviously way too late in the game now, but looking at the space, I wonder if I should have gone with a different layout that gave me a bigger ISO booth. Mind you, I'll only be using this room for things like vocals, guitar amps, and acoustic guitar so maybe I'm over thinking it. I guess I feel that having a larger control room was the better decision.

Sept 25 2D Basement.png

I'm also studying HVAC in more detail now. I almost wish I was using a ductless mini-split for my basement as the ventilation design would be much more simple. Getting zoning and relief air and mixed air ductwork in order is a pain in comparison! Also, fitting all of this duct work is going to be a task.

Greg

[Gregwor]

I've kept quite busy on the design. I made a list of over 200 things I need to address for phase 1 of my build. VERY slowly checking them off. It's things like "where to buy desiccant" or "where to put smoke detectors" or large items like "ISO room side wall treatment".

A few of those items specifically addressed the desiccant for my window cavity. The window cavity gets larger on the ISO room side, so I had to average the measurements to come up with a total area.

27571.25 cubic inches

Which means I need 20 units

1 unit = 1 ounce
1 ounce = 28.3495 grams
20 units = 20 ounces = 566.99 grams

I found a bag of 30 packets. Each packet is 20 grams. So I'd need 29 packets. They measure 3"x4". I sure hope my calculations are right! Here's a picture of them placed in between the windows. For a clearer picture I turned off the ISO room window layer.

Desiccant Quantity.jpg

I asked this in a designated thread, but I still need to figure out whether or not the HVAC silencers should have radius type heels. I'll keep bumping that thread until someone chimes in! If they do have radius type heels I'll have to spend some serious time reworking the designs in SketchUp

Greg

[Soundman2020]

It's things like "where to buy desiccant"

Try your local printing shop: Printers ink (and other printing supplies) usually come in large vats or boxes, packaged with large bags of silica gel. I picked up a couple of 1kg bags for free at a printing plant I visited a while back. They just throw it out, usually...

You seem to be using an awful lot of desiccant. For silica gel, I normal use 200 grams per cubic meter of air space in the cavity. So your 27500 cubic inches is about 0.5m3, and that would be about 100 grams. It's OK to overdo it a bit with the quantity, but don't go too far, or the air inside will be too dry: the wood of the window frame might dry out and crack after a few months / years. Use the right amount, and up to about 30% more, but don't go too crazy. And do make sure you "cook" for several hours, to make sure it is perfectly activated, before you put it in and seal up the windows. In other words, if it is the type that changes color, make sure it is the right color before you put it it! Either blue or orange, depending on the type. But never pink or green! If it is the wrong color, or if it is not colored at all and you don't know if it is dry or saturated, then heat it in an oven set to about 125 °C (about 250°F) for several hours, then put it in the cavity and seal the glass in place as soon as possible afterwards. It's OK for it to sit for a few hours while it cools, and while you get things in place, but don't let it sit for days, as it will start adsorbing moisture from the atmosphere and already be partly saturated by the time you put it in.

Silica Gel is pretty inert: it's actually similar to quartz or sand, chemically, so you can put it on or in pretty much anything, to hold it. Those labels that say "Do not eat! You will die!" or whatever, that you see on the packs of silica gel in cameras, shoes, pills, handbags, etc. are because of the additives that they put in so that it changes color when dry / damp: That color-change chemical stuff is poisonous, but not the actual silica gel itself. It's no more dangerous than sand. If you got the stuff that does not change color, then you could use pretty much anything you want to make the "tray" to hold it. If you got the color-change stuff, then I'd go with plastic: you can find plastic "profiles" in hardware stores, such as Home Depot, and use that to make small trays to hold it, then glue and staple those to one side of the frame gap. Don't use metal or wood for the color-change stuff, as there might be reactions with the color chemicals.

Spread out the silica gel as much as you can in the "trays", to get maximum surface area exposed to the cavity air.

- Stuart -

[Gregwor]

Stuart,

Every single place I've looked online comes up with this same chart:

Desiccant Calc.png

For 200 grams, it works out to ~ 7.05 units. According to the chart, that would be the correct amount for a space that is 9996 cubic inches, equaling 0.1638051 cubic meters.

Either I'm understanding this wrong or else you're short by about 83.62%

Can you share a link where you got your 1m³ requires 200 grams figure? I 100% will follow what you suggest as your designs have clearly stood the test of time, but I like I said, there are conflicting tables online.

Lastly, would you care to share your thoughts on the HVAC question I posted?

Thanks again for everything!

Greg

[Gregwor]

I've been working hard on this sucker! I have a long ways to go yet, sadly. Here is the basement mechanical so far. It's rough, I know. But I'm not going to waste time putting perfect corners in the duct work as I just need to make sure it will fit and it will get where I need it to! I have to redesign and solidify positioning for the two lower left silencers now that I've solidified duct work.

HVAC Getting There.jpg

Getting into the HVAC final design, I realized that the AHU I originally planned to use just won't work well. I'll admit, I haven't solidified a model yet, but I've found some models that would work. Plus, I'm friends with a few guys who work for a local company which is well respected for inventing some crazy HVAC technology. It sounds like they could customize a unit for me.

I ended up deciding to throw more money into the HVAC and get a designated HRV for the studio system. So, two HRV's in the basement I guess. I have to draw in where I'll put balancing dampers. I'm planning on "zoning" the two rooms in the basement.

Also, I'm going to have to find out what joists the central vac come through and find a way to route that 2" PVC into the garage. So much crap to fit into such a small space. Oh how I wish I had 16" ceilings and more square footage!

If you're wondering why that one silencer box is so square and large compared to the others, here's why:

Weird Silencer.jpg

It was the only way I could make it fit in that space and work properly.

In other news, yesterday we did a final walk through of the house. We pointed out things that needed repaired. Due to the builder being crappy, there are things that "aren't readily apparent" so they won't get fixed. I'm over it at this point. The house is still beautiful and I'm grateful to have this place, period. If something drives me nuts bad enough, one day I'll just fix it myself. So, it sounds like we will get the keys to the place on the 1st of November. Sadly, I'm SUPER booked up for recording and live sound work for most of November so finding time to get moved in and started on the place will be challenging. It will be nice to get in there and have the ability to get exact measurements for some things I'm just guessing about at the moment.

Greg

[Gregwor]

I just finished calculating the total pressure of the duct work, silencers and linear slot diffusers/plenums for the control room and iso room combined. The two air handler models I'm looking at come in either low velocity or high velocity fan coils, the latter of which can handle high static pressure. I just need to determine the pressure introduced through the coil modules and filters. Anyway, it was a bit of a grueling process as it's a quite large design with lots of corners and such! Maybe I went overboard, but that's how I do things I guess!

Basement Static Pressure.jpg

So without the AHU, it looks like I'm sitting around 1.20 in. wg

I'm still up in the air whether I want to take advantage of the 90 degree corners in the silencer boxes or not. There are pros and cons to each. The angle of incidence is a huge benefit to the 90 degree corners. I want to recap my studies and then report back with my decision. I wish someone would chime in with some more nerdy reasons to go one way or the other! After reading a ton about achieving insertion loss, it's pretty depressing to see the results achieved by ONLY doubling the cross sectional area of the path:

Insertion Loss Graph from Engineering Acoustics 2009.png

Insertion Loss Expansion Chambers from Engineering Acoustic 2009.png

From my studies, I think if I shift my baffles around inside the boxes, I can achieve more drastic cross sectional area ratios. I will do a bit of experimenting with the static pressure effects of such changes and then make a decision about which route to take.

I have way too much recording work lined up right now so even though we move into the house on Thursday, I probably won't be able to start any real studio design work for a while. When it rains, it pours. I'll do my best to keep some progress posts coming in.

Greg

[Soundman2020]

So without the AHU, it looks like I'm sitting around 1.20 in. wg

That's pretty high, Greg. You will likely need booster fans at some points. Even with the AHU, that's still high. Have you considered running some paths in parallel? It's like electrical circuits, in that sense: series paths add up, but parallel paths divide...

it's pretty depressing to see the results achieved by ONLY doubling the cross sectional area of the path:

Yup. That's why I'm always harping on the change being at least double/half, and needing several places where that happens... plus the baffles...

I think if I shift my baffles around inside the boxes, I can achieve more drastic cross sectional area ratios.

That can help, yes, but don't forget that it will change the velocity too, and fast-moving air makes more turbulence (and noise) then slow moving air, so you might be trading off better isolation in once sense, for greater noise in another....

- Stuart -

[Gregwor]

That's pretty high, Greg. You will likely need booster fans at some points. Even with the AHU, that's still high. Have you considered running some paths in parallel? It's like electrical circuits, in that sense: series paths add up, but parallel paths divide...

If you look at my pressure sheet, pretty much all of the crazy high values are coming from the right angled silencer box turns and abrupt exits (for gross impedance mismatching). My next step might be to run the calculations again with radius heels in the boxes. As you can see from the pictures I've posted, my runs and boxes are all quite massive.

That can help, yes, but don't forget that it will change the velocity too, and fast-moving air makes more turbulence (and noise) then slow moving air, so you might be trading off better isolation in once sense, for greater noise in another....

Oh yes, the juggling act!

Greg

[Gregwor]

Sorry about the lack of updates guys! I didn't have internet for 3 weeks once we moved into our new place. I've spent all of my time installing appliances, mirrors, moving, running central vac (so that it wouldn't interfere with my studio areas), installing 240v electrical out to my garage to run my tools, removing a bunch of crap the builders put in that needed to be ripped out, installing a low handrail to the basement for my kids to hold on to, worked for 19 days straight and looked after my kids.

It's been busy and productive, but over the last few days I've actually been able to work on my stuff. I have squeezed in some SketchUp time, but nothing post-worthy yet. Basically, I did some modifications now that I have the ability to check exact measurements in the basement.

Also, I bought 3 different caulks to try out. I made some progress sealing the subfloor above and luckily, I found some cheap caulk that works well for what I need. For anyone interested, it is DAP Dynaflex 230. It has a lot of bad reviews for outdoor use, but for me inside, it applies clean and easy, dries pretty fast and remains nice and flexible. Also, since it's a small tube, it is way easier on the wrist than the Green Glue stuff.

I also bought 30 sheets of drywall and 10 sheets of 1/2" MDF for my outer leaf ceiling beef up and seal.

I took a good chunk of time to get my table saw all set up and true with the extension wing.

Yesterday I took out 3 lengths of shorter LVL stud to sell to my buddy and bought one long length. My needs changed after the house rough ins happened.

Unfortunately during the LVL moving, my brother and I had my basement door off (hollow core, but still pretty heavy) and leaned up. It was sturdy. My daughter went in behind it and pushed it over on top of my boy. His head put a hole in the door and it cut his forehead. There was blood everywhere. So I spent the entire evening in the hospital getting him stitches. I feel horrible about it. From now on I'm going to be a lot more cautious about where and how I store supplies. Luckily my wife wasn't too upset. I'm just thankful it was as minor as it was.

Anyway, you can see that I've been working hard. I'll hopefully have more progress to share soon (30 joist spaces is overwhelming though!).

Greg

[Waka]

Sorry about the lack of updates guys! I didn't have internet for 3 weeks once we moved into our new place. I've spent all of my time installing appliances, mirrors, moving, running central vac (so that it wouldn't interfere with my studio areas), installing 240v electrical out to my garage to run my tools, removing a bunch of crap the builders put in that needed to be ripped out, installing a low handrail to the basement for my kids to hold on to, worked for 19 days straight and looked after my kids.

It's been busy and productive, but over the last few days I've actually been able to work on my stuff. I have squeezed in some SketchUp time, but nothing post-worthy yet. Basically, I did some modifications now that I have the ability to check exact measurements in the basement.

Also, I bought 3 different caulks to try out. I made some progress sealing the subfloor above and luckily, I found some cheap caulk that works well for what I need. For anyone interested, it is DAP Dynaflex 230. It has a lot of bad reviews for outdoor use, but for me inside, it applies clean and easy, dries pretty fast and remains nice and flexible. Also, since it's a small tube, it is way easier on the wrist than the Green Glue stuff.

I also bought 30 sheets of drywall and 10 sheets of 1/2" MDF for my outer leaf ceiling beef up and seal.

I took a good chunk of time to get my table saw all set up and true with the extension wing.

Yesterday I took out 3 lengths of shorter LVL stud to sell to my buddy and bought one long length. My needs changed after the house rough ins happened.

Unfortunately during the LVL moving, my brother and I had my basement door off (hollow core, but still pretty heavy) and leaned up. It was sturdy. My daughter went in behind it and pushed it over on top of my boy. His head put a hole in the door and it cut his forehead. There was blood everywhere. So I spent the entire evening in the hospital getting him stitches. I feel horrible about it. From now on I'm going to be a lot more cautious about where and how I store supplies. Luckily my wife wasn't too upset. I'm just thankful it was as minor as it was.

Anyway, you can see that I've been working hard. I'll hopefully have more progress to share soon (30 joist spaces is overwhelming though!).

Greg

Congrats on the move! It sounds like you've been really busy! Hopefully you can see some good results from all that hard work in the house. I look forward to seeing your progress with the build as you move forward Greg!

[richroyc]

"where to put smoke detectors"

For the smoke detectors, make sure you get ones that can be wired as "interconnected".
Meaning, when one goes off, they all go off.

I'm pretty sure that they are required for new home construction anyway, but in case you were going to purchase/install them yourself, just make sure they are interconnected.

[Gregwor]

Quick update with pics.

99% caulked the entire ceiling.
60% snipped/grinded off protruding nails/screws.
Around 25% of ceiling has drywall mounted on it.
3% of that drywall is caulked.

My help is leaving tomorrow so I'm not sure how much more I'm going to be able to get up by myself. I might have to work on the design more which isn't a bad thing. Once this ceiling is all done, I can't really move forward without permits anyway.

Here are some pics:

image1.jpeg

image2.jpeg

image3.jpeg

Greg

[Waka]

Very nice Greg! I really like those "cleats" on the ceiling, must have been a hassle to cut them out to sit over the batten though!

Is that plastic over the walls part of the inner leaf acoustic treatment to reflect highs? Or just to keep the fluffy in place and is inside the cavity?

I look forward to some more pics!

[Gregwor]

Very nice Greg! I really like those "cleats" on the ceiling, must have been a hassle to cut them out to sit over the batten though!

Thanks Dan!

The cleats were actually a breeze to make. I dug through the garbage bins around my neighborhood and found 2x4 cut offs from the framers building new homes. I just measured everything and left an 1/8" extra to allow the cleat to apply pressure to the drywall. After that, I set my table saw and made the one cut on a bunch of pieces, flipped it 90 degrees, set my saw and made the next cut on all of the pieces. After that, I set my saw to 3" and cut them all to that length. The longest part was drilling the screw holes. Using the strips of wood I'd cut out, I screwed together a little jig that allowed me to drill the holes very quickly. Damned near didn't let my finger off the trigger on the drill the whole time! It didn't take very long to make ~60 of them. 60 of them was only enough for like 20% of what I need though :-S

I should mention that it took me 3 revisions to get a perfectly working cleat though. At first I tried some angled ones but they weren't strong enough.

Here is that version 1:

image1.jpeg

image2.jpeg

Sadly, they didn't work good.

Is that plastic over the walls part of the inner leaf acoustic treatment to reflect highs? Or just to keep the fluffy in place and is inside the cavity?

So that wall is actually the frost wall the home builder put up. There is a chunk of that wall coming down in order to widen the front portion of my control room (where the soffit wing on my right with be). Otherwise I'm leaving it. That plastic is the vapour barrier and I will be ripping it down and placing it on my inner leaf. Depending on whether the wall is an inside out design or not (I have a combination of both), the barrier will be in a different spot.

Greg