Getting ready to rock

[Roxus]

G'day (long time lurker, first time poster),

I'm taking possession of my new one storey home in a few weeks and I am turning one of the 3-car garage spots into a HT !!
The previous owners have already put up drywall to make a 25 x 12 x 9 room with the other 2 walls being the exterior walls, and the rollup door, of course.
So I'm going to be following Sonnie's lead in puttng up a wall in front of the garage door as well as pull down the drywall on the interior wall and double-stud it. I really don't want to pull down the exterior wall drywall, but if it is suggested as a good idea, then I will re-consider it (though I don't know why I would stop sound propogating to the grass .

Should I go the extra step and put up resilient channel ?

The floor is concrete, so I'm just going to lay down heavy felt and carpet.
I have access to the roof to lay insulation, but is there a lot of sound transfer through roof trusses ?

I have a sectional to use as the rear seating, but it's about 90" deep (and 119" wide), so the rear seating riser is going to be quite deep. This puts the rear viewers 8 feet behind the front viewers. I'm not sure how to handle that with surround speakers since they are supposed to be just behind the primary viewing position but that would put them well in front of the rear viewers. So should I setup a 2nd set of surround speakers behind them ?

I have a 57" 16x9 RPTV surrounded by a 10 x 3 x 7 entertainment unit. I plan to build a stage for it to raise it up about 6" so the rear viewers can see without front heads getting in the way, but that would make the screen just above horizontal for the prime position, which isn't good, right ? I also plan to use the speakers from the TV as the centre channel, as well as a dedicated speaker I already have.

I'm looking forward to moving at a similar speed to Sonnie
Can't wait to get in !!

Anyway, looking forward to hearing from you all on suggestions and tips.

I have 2 drawings (wife thinks I'm obsessing
http://mick.alaynaworks.com:81/theater.png and http://mick.alaynaworks.com:81/seating.png (which doesn't show the new row of seats)

[aud19]

Welcome Michael

Well you've got a good start as the room dimensions aren't divisible by or multiples of eachother. Just make sure you keep that rule in mind when you're closing in the wall infront of the roll up door. I'd personally just double stud (offset). If you want to go through the extra trouble of resilient channel, I'm sure it will work nicely as well, but I don't feel it's neccesary IMO.

You may want to investigate further in to treatments for concrete floors. I'd at least look in to the following which (If I'm not missing a step or mixing up the order ops: ) should work nicely. Self leveling cement for a nice flat surface to start. Then a vapour barrier. Then I can't remember what it's called but it's "raised" plastic product wich allows air space between the concrete and sub-floor above and in-floor radiant heating which is silent (yay!) and likely desirable in a cooler garage area not to mention one of the more efficient ways to heat a space and make the room very comfortable for the family. Then the sub-floor which can vary but If given the choice and budget I'd start with say 1/4" plywood then an acoustic material and on top of that and finally staggered (from the lower plywood) 1/2", 5/8" or 3/4" plywood. Then of course carpet. Obviously you'll have to check local building codes and contractors etc.

I have access to the roof to lay insulation, but is there a lot of sound transfer through roof trusses ?

Does the attic above this space extend to any other areas of your house? Sound will get into the attic and be audible in other adjoining rooms if not isolated. If you think it might not be a concern for whatever reasons and you have access to the attic, leave it to last and if you find the noise leakage annoying in another room, then add sound insulation.

I'm not sure how to handle that with surround speakers since they are supposed to be just behind the primary viewing position but that would put them well in front of the rear viewers. So should I setup a 2nd set of surround speakers behind them ?

You've got to make a call. Have the speakers positioned for optimal positioning for the prime location at the expense of the other locations or compromise between the two seating locations so that neither is perfect but both are decent. I'd personally go for the latter.

I plan to build a stage for it to raise it up about 6" so the rear viewers can see without front heads getting in the way, but that would make the screen just above horizontal for the prime position, which isn't good, right ? I also plan to use the speakers from the TV as the centre channel, as well as a dedicated speaker I already have.

Try sitting 6" lower than you normally would and see if the picture degrades. A better solution might be to build a riser for the rear seating instead... I'd also reccommend against using both your TV speakers and a dedicated speaker for the centre channel. They'll have different voicing and audio could even take longer to come out of say the TV than the dedicated speaker causing echoey, muddy dialogue. Just generally a bad idea.

Jason




Need a new display? Questions about new display technologies? Visit RPTVs, plasmas, and other monitors @ HTguide

[Sonnie Parker]

Hey Michael... glad to see you made it to the guide... welcome!

I agree with Jason...

I don't think resilient channel is necessary if you use staggered studding although it's really up to you.

I stagger studded my exterior wall (facing the grass) simply because I feared resonant noises transferring through the walls and figured this would at least minimize it. Ironically though I feared the same thing through my roof truss system but have yet to insulate my attic above the HT room. I'd recommend what Jason said... wait til you are finished and listen and see if there are any unwanted noises through the attic. I haven't had any problems but keep in mind too that the back side of my HT room does not touch the wall to the house... there is a corridor between the house the the room. I'm sure this is making a difference in sound transfer into the house. The other parts of our attic are insulated with R-38 too so a combination of the ceiling in the HT room being 6 inches with R-26 and double 5/8" sheetrock and the other parts of the attic being R-38 probably all contribute to good sound proofing.

There were a few who thought maybe I was going overboard with just what I did to sound proof my room. I can say that I don't think anymore than what I did would be necessary but every house is built differently. I would consider our house to be in the medium of quality construction.

As far as an RPTV being raised up I wouldn't know. I suppose it could and possibly would be different from a PJ screen. I know our screen image doesn't appear to change from standing up or sitting down.... but we use a PJ not an RPTV. Now that I think about it... the image on our RPTV in our great room does not look as good when standing as it does when sitting. I guess it's kinda like getting too far left or right when viewing an RPTV. Maybe the same rule applies for vertical viewing as it does for horizontal viewing depending on the quality of RPTV.

As far as using padding and carpet on the concrete... I think this is fine. It's what most people do in their homes anyway and the concrete in your gargage is probably no different than the concrete where you actual house is. This is all I did and haven't had any problems thus far but it's only been about 3 months since I finished ours. The only thing that worries me about building up a platform for the floor would be acoustical problems. I have heard of this but have not witnessed it. It makes sense that you could have some issues though and it would be hard to remove and a pain in the rump once you finished your room to have to go back and change it.






SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[aud19]

Maybe the same rule applies for vertical viewing as it does for horizontal viewing depending on the quality of RPTV.

It does but some TV's it's less of an issue hence why I suggested trying the crouch method to see if he notices a difference.

The only thing that worries me about building up a platform for the floor would be acoustical problems.

I'm not sure if you're refferring here to my flooring recomendation but I in know way meant for him to build a "platform". The raised plastic product I reffered to is maybe 1/2" thick. Just enough to allow air movement and keep your sub-floor off of direct contact with the concrete. It doubles as the framework for the electric in floor heating which "snaps" in to the low portion of the channels. It's really cool stuff I saw it on "Holmes on Homes" http://www.holmesonhomes.com/ and like I said it's silent too, which is awesome for a HT. Besides being a garage I doubt it had heating built in to it. Now if I could only remember the name of the stuff?!?! :?

Jason




Need a new display? Questions about new display technologies? Visit RPTVs, plasmas, and other monitors @ HTguide

[Sonnie Parker]

I don't believe your recommendation would be any issue for acoustics Jason. At first quick read I really didn't understand it but after a second read and your second post I think I understand better what you are saying. I apologize for the implication.


I really didn't have to worry about heating because the attic area over the garage is open to the rest of the house. It was easy for us to extend our central heating and cooling to the HT room as well as a return air vent. This makes our room function basically the same as a room in the house other than it's much tighter with very little air leakage. Fortunately our HAC system is large enough to accomodate the extra space.






SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[aud19]

Okay I've done some more digging and found out the name of the company that supplied the in-floor heating, It's Nu-Heat Industries Ltd nuheat@nuheat.com (right in my own backyard amazingly :LOL: ) and sent them off an e-mail regarding the dimpled plastic product used for the heating and as a moisture barrier. So hopefully I'll find that out...lol (This has become a personal quest of mine now... I don't even care if Michael uses it now. I just want to know!...lol)

Speaking of which...where ya at Michael?...lol

BTW and FYI Here's the link to the episode http://www.holmesonhomes.com/index.c...l&episodeID=25

Jason




Need a new display? Questions about new display technologies? Visit RPTVs, plasmas, and other monitors @ HTguide

[Roxus]

Here I am

OK, so I won't worry about the RC
But if I add staggered stud and double-layered drywall on one side, single on the other, that seems to take up about 8". With the garage door being about 3" thick, that seems to bring the room length down to 24'. By adding another 3" to the side wall, becoz of staggered studding and double drywall, this will bring the width down to 12'. So now the length is twice the width. I have read about the standing waves, but does this take into account the 3' that entertainment unit up front will take up ?

I don't think I have to worry about in-floor heating. I live in Southern California, and if anything, cooling is going to be my problem, especially with my garage on the western side of the house.

The garage attic space is separated from the rest of the house by a firewall I believe, though I've only been up there once.

Actually, now that I talk about cooling, I may have to pull down the drywall on the longest original outside wall to put some proper insulation in there to keep the temp down in the theater.

I was looking through the manual of my receiver (Onkyo TX-SR800) which is 7.1 capable, and it talks about dipole speakers bouncing the sound off the front and rear walls from the surround speakers, and off the side walls for the back speakers. Might this solve my speaker problem (I only have 5.1 speakers right now) in my current 16' x 14' lounge room.

When I was talking about raising the RPTV/Entertainment unit and the preferred viewing angle, I was more talking about something I read once that the natural viewing angle for a person is a few degrees below horizontal, and not the viewing capabilities of my RPTV. But by raising the TV on a 6" platform, that would raise the viewing angle a few degrees above horizontal for the front row, and below for the rear row. Maybe I shouldn't build the stage until I move everything in and see what it's like first ?

Good point about the 2 different center channels. I'll try both seperately and see which is the best.

I was out furniture shopping today and found these that I'm thinking for my front row...
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/furnitur...uhothse56.html in a chaise/armless recliner/console/armed recliner combination. Comes out @ 9' wide which will leave 1' in between the chaise and the windowed wall for a coffee table, and 2' on the other side, same as the distance to the steps to the riser. The center seat [mine ] will be just 6" right of dead center. Anyone know of anything out there similar (with the chaise - the wife wants is) with a smaller console so I can put one between all three seats ?

[Sonnie Parker]

I forgot that one of the reasons that I ended up stagger studding the existing outside wall was because I wanted and needed to insulate that wall anyway. Being a garage wall it was not insulated initially. I figured why I had the drywall tore out I may as well stagger stud it and install R-26 to help better insulate it (on top of the thought that I wanted to try to eliminate any wall resonants passing into the attic and roof truss structure).

I've heard that same thing about exact halving of width and length. I understand it to be a no-no but I couldn't say for sure. Maybe some of the guys can chime in on this one.


That firewall in the attic might well help any transfer of sound into the rest of the attic. Can't see how it wouldn't at least help some. This may mean you won't have to insulate above your room in the attic.


When it comes to viewing angles I prefer my screen to be higher than eye level. When I lean back in my recliner my eyes naturally are looking higher up than horizontal. One thing I don't like about watching our RPTV in our great room while in the recliner is having to look down, almost through the reading part of my glasses, to see the picture. Our center point of the screen in our HT room is several feet above horizontal eye level and this make it much easier on the neck and eyes. You might try sitting in your seats and reclining or however you normally sit and see what your eyes feel more comfortable with... then you can make a decision on how high of a stage to build.


Nice furniture... I'm not that familiar with anything other than Berkline and La-z-boy. Three separate recliners was cheaper than anything I could find. Granted three separates is not nearly as nice as what you are looking at cosmetically but would allow you to build stands in between... nope... check that... with only 12' width that would be hard to do. I don't have enough room myself to do anything between seats and my room is 11.5' wide. This may be a hard find for ya.






SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[Roxus]

If I do rip down all the existing drywall to put in some insulation, I might as well put in some staggered studs and double drywall it as well. But won't that mean I will have to pull down the drywall on the roof too ? I'll have to add a 2" header (and footer of course) for the new studs, and that will be 2" where the roof drywall is currently.

Speaking of footers (or bases or whatever the correct name for them is) how do I attach them to the concrete ? I've seen on TV them using nails with explosive heads. Is that the go ?

[Sonnie Parker]

You could tear down the ceiling but you have 9' and if you are willing to give up about 7-8" of that then you wouldn't necessarily have to tear it down. I had 9' and maybe a few inches over and once I tore out the wall rock I nailed a 2" X 6" board up over a 1/2" thick expansion joint at the top of the wall which gave me my extra 2" at the top. By installing a 2" X 6" drop down ceiling (only 1/8" to 1/4" below the original ceiling) I was able to insulate this area. This is probably one reason I haven't had to insulate the attic.

You can see what I'm talking about in the pic below as far as the way I did the top of the existing wall:



If you aren't willing to give up any ceiling height then it might be your only option is to tear down the ceiling. Once you get the wall tore down you can look at what you are facing and it might be that you could attach a 2 X 6 flat... underneath the top plate. Then you only give up 1.5" or maybe a little more depending on exactly where your ceiling drops down to.


Then on the bottom I attached my 2" board (actually 1.5" + the .5" exp. joint) into the existing bottom plate instead of trying to nail it into the concrete. I did use liquid nail on the bottom but not sure it was really necessary.

Here's a pic of the bottom:



You can use a 22 caliper nail gun but I'd think it would be easier to nail into your existing bottom plate just as I did.






SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[Roxus]

OIC, you nailed horizontally through the expansion joint material into the original stud.
I'd never noticed the nail head before in your pictures.

One of my bigger concerns in redoing the ceilng is that there are currently 3 large flourescant lights installed (which prolly aren't hard at all to remove) but more importantly, two fire sprinklers are in the ceiling as well. I don't know what might be involved in lowering them to a new ceiling level, let alone possibly having someone do it to fire code.

I wonder if I can run the new 2" (1.5" plus 0.5" expansion material) header/top plate up against the current ceiling drywall and just nail/screw it to the current studs ?
Since the inner drywall will be attached to a staggered stud, which is attached to the new header/footer, and the new header is attached to the original studs, and the footer is attached to the old footer, will there be sound transfer ? Prolly doesn't matter that much, since 3 of the 4 walls are outer walls anyway.

Oh the fun and joy to come

[Sonnie Parker]

Oh yeah... joy and fun are on the way for sure... lol


I don't see that there would be any transfer in your idea but technically I couldn't say. I don't even know that the expansion joint helped any in our construction but I don't believe it hurt anything. It is rubber and it does give some so I'd think it would absorb some resonance but then we have the issue of the nails going through.

You might could rip some of the expansion joint down to 1.5" or 2" to go between the top header and the ceiling.

The flourescent lights probably wouldn't be a big deal to lower but when it comes to sprinkler heads... ooh... I'd be scared of those. If something didn't work out right with those then it could be a wet one. 8O






SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[Roxus]

Well I've started the journey finally.
I sealed up my garage door on Saturday.
I had a near death experience doing that. When I released the last screw holding the lower rail runner in place, the whole thing shot up becoz it is connected to the spring at the top, which I did not release the tension from. Fortunately, the wheel didn't leave the track and it jammed in the door itself just below my head. The wife came running out after hearing the shudder and thud throughout the house, but I didn't let her in the garage coz I didn't know if it was going to give way while I tried to release the tension off the spring.

Anwyay, I'll start on the rear wall this weekend hopefully.

[Roxus]

Hey Sonnie,
when you built your wall in front of your garage door, there aren't 2x6's that are 12' wide are there. So what do you do when you have to join 2 together ?
I suppose a simple leftover piece at the join to make sure the header and footer plates stay together ? Just this join piece has to be in between the staggered studs, so it has to be measured just right so the join doesn't come together under a stud somewhere ?

[Paul H]

There are 2x6 that are 12' long, and 14', 16' and longer if you special-order them.

The entire top track (I believe this is what you're referring to) for your stud wall should be 2 layers (3" total thickness). If you need joints in the top pieces they can be anywhere, just make the joints of the very top piece offset from the piece directly underneath.

You weren't kidding about the near-death experience - the springs on an overhead door can be extremely dangerous if not handled properly - glad you're ok.

Work safe.

Paul

[Roxus]

I didn't know that about the top track.
What about the bottom track.
Same thing ?

[Paul H]

The bottom track is single, as it gets fastened (glued, screwed, nailed) to the floor, base or whatever, so the joints don't matter.

Paul

[Sonnie Parker]

I had a near death experience doing that. When I released the last screw holding the lower rail runner in place, the whole thing shot up becoz it is connected to the spring at the top, which I did not release the tension from.

You weren't kidding about the near-death experience - the springs on an overhead door can be extremely dangerous if not handled properly - glad you're ok.

Yep... I learned my lesson the hard way too. On my first day and about 2 hours into tearing down the garage door hardware I sliced open my wrist due to my ignorance of not adhering to the BIG WARNING STICKER on the tension bars. :roll: Huh... 11 stitches and 2 hours later I was back at it though. Still have a nasty scar.


As Paul said... longer 2 X 6's are no problem. I used various lengths on my top plates and bottom plates so as to overlap the seams.

I doubled my bottom and top. I liquid nailed and concrete nailed my bottom seal plate, attached the 1/2" expansion joint, built the wall short so that I could stand it up without scraping the ceiling, then once it was up I added another 1/2" expansion joint on top and one more top plate (nailing it from the underside)... and all were staggered to overlap the seams.

There was probably an easier way to do it but I just couldn't figure it out at the time, thus I did what I did and it worked out okay.

[Roxus]

See how much I know my way around a lumber yard ?
As it turns out, extra long lengths are no big deal (except them sticking out the back of the 7 foot bed of my pickup)

So I banged out my rear wall over the weekend.
I've used 1 2x6 on the bottom plate, and 1 on the top, and will attach a second to the top when I stand the wall up. I used "Simpson Ties" (L-brackets) on either sides of the studs, top and bottom rather than screwing in on an angle (6 nails on each bracket). Then to be doubly-sure, I have put 2 screws into the studs straight through the top/bottom plates.

My only problem (apart from the fear that it will all come crashing down is that the gap between the top plate and the sheetrock on the roof (which I don't want to touch) is SO tight to get the top plate in. I'm sure what I should have done is leave enough room for some expansion material in between , but it didn't occur to me until it was WAY too late. So at the moment, I am going to take a power sander and take a little off the top plate to squeeze it in. But then it will be tight against the roof sheetrock. Should sound transfer up through the top plates without expansion material into the ceiling sheetrock and thefore the attic, concern me ? Or am I worrying too much about the sound transfer ?

I will take some photos this weekend before I tear down all the existing drywall on Saturday, and start installing the new staggered studs.

[Roxus]

Hmmm....been pretty quiet in here....
Everyone studying for final exams, or off on summer holidays already ?

I fell behind schedule this weekend.
It took a lot longer than I had planned to get all the previous drywall off, mostly due to the tedious task of removing the screws and nails used to attach it.

I got up all the baseplate 2x2's, and more than half the topplate 2x4's before I stripped the heads of 3 straight screws and came to the conclusion that I was getting too tired.

So I switched to starting on the staggered studs and got a few in before the Mrs called me for dinner.

So I'll have to work on it all week this week to get back on schedule, coz my brother-in-law is coming over Sunday to help me with the electrical

[Roxus]

I finished putting up the last of the studs Friday night (except I have to redo the tops of one wall becoz instead of 16"-on-centre, they are 16"-right edge - D'Oh!)

My brother-in-law came over today and helped me with some of the electrical.
The whole garage was on 1 circuit and we took all the outlets not in the theater off of that cicruit and put them on another.

Then we dropped cable down for the sconce lights and (I'm sorry, Sonnie, it's too cool not to blatantly rip off) the rope lights that will go around the moulding.

Went down to Lane furniture yesterday and ordered the 3 seat version of the Hollywood. Will be available in 4-6 weeks. I'm going on vacation mid August so everything has to be finished by then anyway [so the wife can use the theater whilst I am away ]

I'll be dropping conduit during the week for speaker cable,CATV and ethernet during the week so I can put up the insulation and drywall next weekend.
What a 4th of July weekend I'll be having !

[Roxus]

I finally got some pictures off the camera.
Only up to the partial drywall tearing down stage. So the next batch will leap ahead to having it torn all down, staggered studs up, and starting on electrical work.

[Roxus]

Things to do before drywall goes up

I dropped some conduit last night, and then started to nail in some outlet boxes when I realised that the spacing that is "built-in" on the outlet boxes is for a single sheet of sheetrock. So I plan on attaching a scrap piece of wood to the stud so that it protrudes 5/8". Then the outlet boxes can be nailed to those and will then be flush with the 2nd layer of sheetrock. But then I got to thinking...what ELSE do I have to do before I put the drywall up and forever seal my fate ?

So far I only have ...

Outlet boxes (electrical, speaker cable, ethernet,game console)
Run some more CATV coax from the junction box up into the roof

But is there anything else that others have thought they should have done BEFORE they put up the drywall ?