Small Drum Practice Room
Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 5:49 am
So my friend Darren needs a room where he can practice and film some tutorial type videos without having the cops come knock on his door. Of course, I offered to help him since he has been and will be some muscle for my personal studio build. Meeting noise bylaw requirements is priority number one. Number two is having it comfortable (HVAC). Number three is treating the small room acoustically as best as possible. Number four is having it look great for vibe and great video shots.
I went over yesterday for consultation session number one and after doing some SPL measurements, the project went from a simple beef up, tapping into his house HVAC, and acoustic treatment project to a full on room in a room, HVAC silencer, mini-split project.
Bylaws in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada are 65 dBA at property line. I initially measured C weighted and he hit 66. A weighted will read louder above 1kHz and as it was, I could damned near hear cymbals. I could hear the tone in his room, outside. Not good at all. That is what triggered him to say screw it, let's go all in.
Here is what I quickly drew up for him. We got a plan of attack for all of the HVAC including what units, we figured out silencer box dimensions and duct work. The dimensions of the room AFTER building the room in a room will be 11' 11" long (into the nook) or 9' 10" (to the door) by 11' 3 3/8" wide by 7' 1/4" tall. We will be doing an inside out ceiling, so that 7' 1/4" will be the bottom of the LVL stud. Acoustic ceiling height will be 7' 5 3/4".
Inner leaf stale air return will be run through 3 silencer boxes stuffed between floor joists on the far left side of the SketchUp render, overhead. Behind the nook inner leaf wall, we will situate the other 3 silencer boxes. The fresh air inner leaf supply silencer sleeves will penetrate through the nook wall up high and the mini split head will be underneath of it. This will provide fresh air into the top of the mini split head.
To the far right of the drum room in the SketchUp render, there is a storage room where we will penetrate his rim board with the return and supply ducts to outside. They will run through an HRV that has a fan in it. I haven't run the numbers for that yet (as I haven't drawn up the silencer boxes... and it's only been 1 evening since he decided this it route he wants to go), but I'm hoping the static pressure of the system will fall within the fan spec of the HRV. If it doesn't, we will probably just scrap the HRV and go with a strong inline duct fan.
Before deciding to use this room as a drum room, he had drywalled it as a bedroom. He had stuffed some Safe'n'Sound in the joists as his master bedroom is directly above. He used ultralight 1/2" drywall everywhere. He can re-use some sheets to finish his basement laundry room. The rest can go in the garbage. After deciding to go all out on the room, he immediately started unscrewing the drywall (luckily it wasn't mudded/taped yet). Here are a couple progress pics from last night. So for now, I'm going to draw up the silencer boxes for him and we are getting a price on the mini-split from my buddy who runs an HVAC company. Darren will finish tearing off the drywall, extend the perimeter outer leaf walls to the foundation, beef up the sub floor above, and seal everything.
I'll try and get Darren on the forum so he can update this thread instead of me. But if he doesn't, I will, just so there is more content on the forum for you turkey's to look at. Hopefully something along the way can help someone. And as usual, hopefully one of you catch some mistakes and help myself and Darren out with his design/build!
Greg
I went over yesterday for consultation session number one and after doing some SPL measurements, the project went from a simple beef up, tapping into his house HVAC, and acoustic treatment project to a full on room in a room, HVAC silencer, mini-split project.
Bylaws in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada are 65 dBA at property line. I initially measured C weighted and he hit 66. A weighted will read louder above 1kHz and as it was, I could damned near hear cymbals. I could hear the tone in his room, outside. Not good at all. That is what triggered him to say screw it, let's go all in.
Here is what I quickly drew up for him. We got a plan of attack for all of the HVAC including what units, we figured out silencer box dimensions and duct work. The dimensions of the room AFTER building the room in a room will be 11' 11" long (into the nook) or 9' 10" (to the door) by 11' 3 3/8" wide by 7' 1/4" tall. We will be doing an inside out ceiling, so that 7' 1/4" will be the bottom of the LVL stud. Acoustic ceiling height will be 7' 5 3/4".
Inner leaf stale air return will be run through 3 silencer boxes stuffed between floor joists on the far left side of the SketchUp render, overhead. Behind the nook inner leaf wall, we will situate the other 3 silencer boxes. The fresh air inner leaf supply silencer sleeves will penetrate through the nook wall up high and the mini split head will be underneath of it. This will provide fresh air into the top of the mini split head.
To the far right of the drum room in the SketchUp render, there is a storage room where we will penetrate his rim board with the return and supply ducts to outside. They will run through an HRV that has a fan in it. I haven't run the numbers for that yet (as I haven't drawn up the silencer boxes... and it's only been 1 evening since he decided this it route he wants to go), but I'm hoping the static pressure of the system will fall within the fan spec of the HRV. If it doesn't, we will probably just scrap the HRV and go with a strong inline duct fan.
Before deciding to use this room as a drum room, he had drywalled it as a bedroom. He had stuffed some Safe'n'Sound in the joists as his master bedroom is directly above. He used ultralight 1/2" drywall everywhere. He can re-use some sheets to finish his basement laundry room. The rest can go in the garbage. After deciding to go all out on the room, he immediately started unscrewing the drywall (luckily it wasn't mudded/taped yet). Here are a couple progress pics from last night. So for now, I'm going to draw up the silencer boxes for him and we are getting a price on the mini-split from my buddy who runs an HVAC company. Darren will finish tearing off the drywall, extend the perimeter outer leaf walls to the foundation, beef up the sub floor above, and seal everything.
I'll try and get Darren on the forum so he can update this thread instead of me. But if he doesn't, I will, just so there is more content on the forum for you turkey's to look at. Hopefully something along the way can help someone. And as usual, hopefully one of you catch some mistakes and help myself and Darren out with his design/build!
Greg