Basement Control Room Design
Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 2:00 pm
Hi All,
My name is Andy. It's my first post, forgive me for any novice questions! I'm at a very preliminary stage so right now I just have a couple basic questions to get me thinking on the right track. I just bought a house in Buffalo, NY USA. I don't move in for a couple months, but I'm trying to get the design started. My first order of business is figuring out where to place the control room in the basement. Here's the floor plan of the basement
The basics:
- It's 8'0" feet from floor to bottom of the joists.
- I'm much more interested in acoustics than isolation. Had the reverse for the past 10 years, really looking for good acoustics.
Here's a photo of the basement from position #1.
Here's a photo from position #2:
Here's a photo from position #3:
This last one is the largest area, and is where I'd like to put the control room. I grabbed one of the control room designs on this site and dropped it into the floor plan in a couple different ways.
Control Room Position #1: Control Room Position #2: Not sure if that layout is what I will/should use, but thought it would help show what I'm imagining. If you look at the #3 photo, you'll see my biggest concern: the air ducts. They eat up about 1/3 of the area, and I'm not sure how to deal with them.
So here's question #1:
How concerned should I be about control room symmetry, when it comes to the ceiling height?
If it is terribly important, then I guess I have to orient the control room like position #2. I was hoping to orient it like position #1 because I'd have a chance to get a little longer, more spacious room. But then again, I know that's subject to acoustics (ctrl room dimensions/ratios) so I realize I don't want to necessarily just make it longer arbitrarily. Needs to have proper lenth to width ratio to get good sound.
Question #2:
How should I provide access to the window and breaker panel?
For the breaker panel, should it be some kind of door on hinges that opens inward? Sliding door? Really have no clue. Maybe any solution make it too difficult to work on the panel, like add a new circuit or something? What about the window - is there any way to get some of that natural sunlight without it being too difficult? Should I bother?
If there's too many issues in that area (ducts, elec panel and window), I'd have to think about putting the control room in the #2 pic area. But that's way too small - less than 9 feet for it's shortest dimension after walls are put up. So it's not ideal.
Question #3:
For the control room itself, is there a recommended complete basic design that I can use as a starting point and work off of it? Ideally it would have all the elements of the room - wall treatments, soffit design, diffusors, etc. Then I could tweak it as I see fit (and can afford!). Maybe the one that I brought in here is a good one, I don't know. It just seems like that would be a lot more efficient to start with something where a whole lot of decisions have been made by someone who knows a lot more about this stuff than me. I'm just a little nervous about piecing all these different elements together in a coherent way.
Well, thanks in advance for any suggestions you can give me. This is a fantastic forum, I'm really impressed and feel fortunate that it exists, so much time spent by the moderators/experts giving advice. I really appreciate it.
Thanks,
buzz
My name is Andy. It's my first post, forgive me for any novice questions! I'm at a very preliminary stage so right now I just have a couple basic questions to get me thinking on the right track. I just bought a house in Buffalo, NY USA. I don't move in for a couple months, but I'm trying to get the design started. My first order of business is figuring out where to place the control room in the basement. Here's the floor plan of the basement
The basics:
- It's 8'0" feet from floor to bottom of the joists.
- I'm much more interested in acoustics than isolation. Had the reverse for the past 10 years, really looking for good acoustics.
Here's a photo of the basement from position #1.
Here's a photo from position #2:
Here's a photo from position #3:
This last one is the largest area, and is where I'd like to put the control room. I grabbed one of the control room designs on this site and dropped it into the floor plan in a couple different ways.
Control Room Position #1: Control Room Position #2: Not sure if that layout is what I will/should use, but thought it would help show what I'm imagining. If you look at the #3 photo, you'll see my biggest concern: the air ducts. They eat up about 1/3 of the area, and I'm not sure how to deal with them.
So here's question #1:
How concerned should I be about control room symmetry, when it comes to the ceiling height?
If it is terribly important, then I guess I have to orient the control room like position #2. I was hoping to orient it like position #1 because I'd have a chance to get a little longer, more spacious room. But then again, I know that's subject to acoustics (ctrl room dimensions/ratios) so I realize I don't want to necessarily just make it longer arbitrarily. Needs to have proper lenth to width ratio to get good sound.
Question #2:
How should I provide access to the window and breaker panel?
For the breaker panel, should it be some kind of door on hinges that opens inward? Sliding door? Really have no clue. Maybe any solution make it too difficult to work on the panel, like add a new circuit or something? What about the window - is there any way to get some of that natural sunlight without it being too difficult? Should I bother?
If there's too many issues in that area (ducts, elec panel and window), I'd have to think about putting the control room in the #2 pic area. But that's way too small - less than 9 feet for it's shortest dimension after walls are put up. So it's not ideal.
Question #3:
For the control room itself, is there a recommended complete basic design that I can use as a starting point and work off of it? Ideally it would have all the elements of the room - wall treatments, soffit design, diffusors, etc. Then I could tweak it as I see fit (and can afford!). Maybe the one that I brought in here is a good one, I don't know. It just seems like that would be a lot more efficient to start with something where a whole lot of decisions have been made by someone who knows a lot more about this stuff than me. I'm just a little nervous about piecing all these different elements together in a coherent way.
Well, thanks in advance for any suggestions you can give me. This is a fantastic forum, I'm really impressed and feel fortunate that it exists, so much time spent by the moderators/experts giving advice. I really appreciate it.
Thanks,
buzz