John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Well, we all learn don't we...

We put one rooftop style, commercial, combination Heat/AC, unit mounted on a concrete pad outside the studio. The studio (both control and live rooms) are fed with large supply and return ducts that are fully lined with insulation. The system is just as quiet as can be and we can easily track with it on!

The problem... winter time and heat.

The control room has no "exterior" walls and when you get four people in there, the gear running, and the lights on it gets pretty warm. This is also where the thermostat is located. So, as you can imagine, the live room stays much colder, about 10 - 15 degrees colder, than the control room. Also, if you crank the thermostat up to make the live room comfortable then the control room is just about unbearable.

There seem to be a couple solutions. One is to move the thermostat to the Live Room. This will easily solve the problem of clients being uncomfortably cold at the cost of the engineer being uncomfortably hot. The other is to install electric baseboard heating underneath the windows in the Live Room (see a photo of the live room here, http://www.evergroove.com/graphics/aug0 ... g_2223.jpg).

My questions are:

1. Does anyone have any other ideas about how to solve this problem?
2. Has anyone had a bad experience with electric baseboard heating relating to power issues. There are no moving parts or motors so I cannot imagine the heaters throwing back "hash" onto the power lines.

We have all the crucial audio gear on it's own phase in the panel and everything else, like lights and refrigerators, on the other phase. The current HVAC system runs off a dual pole, 30A, breaker, so obviously it shares both phases but what can you do about that?

I know I can get 120V, electric baseboard heaters, and this would help in keeping non-audio related stuff on it's own phase.

The install will be "free" since my day job is spprenticing under a Master Electrician.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I just wanted to provide as much information possible for those that might have some insight.

Thanks,
Brad

Brad - your problem is a very typical one where you are using one HVAC to control two rooms and you've exemplified the problems it creates.

If heating is your only problem then you'd be better off if you disconnect the studio heating completely and use the HVAC to drive the control room. Then use a different system for the studio - i.e like the electric heaters you suggested.

of course getting fresh air into the studio will become the next problem.

cheers
john

John,

Thanks very much for your reply. Yes, this is a problem and we figured it would be but thought we'd give it a try. The electric baseboard heat should be an easy fix though.

As for fresh air, I'd leave the system "hooked up" to the live room too. Reason is, the Control Room is comfortable enough, very comfortable acutally, with just fan running and circulating fresh air that this would allow fresh air into the live room as well.

Do you know of any problems with running electric baseboard in studios? Should we stay single pole or go dual pole? It takes less amps to run them as dual pole.

Again, thanks for the reply!

-Brad

Hi ya Brad.

Electric baseboard heaters are fine. If you choose to go with them get the hydronic (oil filled) ones. They're much more efficent, but more expensive (about 4x the cost).

The crap ones from the depot and lowes have no oil in them and they will also "ping" as they warm up. The hydronic ones are quite.

If you have your room dimensions and difference in heat (in degrees) I can calculate what you would need. Sent them to me in a P.M. and I'll dig up my charts.

I'm an electrician

ciao and good luck

Who can tell the best product among those listed on this site? https://11must.com/best-baseboard-heaters/