I have a pocket door setup leading into my theater in my basement. I had to remove the old door and track, so right now I have no door to my theater. There are hooks inside the doorframe and wall to which I can attach a new track fairly easily, so I think I won't have a problem getting a new door in.

Immediately across the hall is my furnace and laundry room. These things make a lot of noise, so I'd like to get a *good* door to seal up the room.

Pocket doors don't tend to have a firm seal like regular doors - they just kind of go up to the jamb and stop. Does anyone have experience with pocket doors that have a good tight seal around them? Any suggestions or advice?

I have a pocket door setup leading into my theater in my basement. I had to remove the old door and track, so right now I have no door to my theater. There are hooks inside the doorframe and wall to which I can attach a new track fairly easily, so I think I won't have a problem getting a new door in.

Immediately across the hall is my furnace and laundry room. These things make a lot of noise, so I'd like to get a *good* door to seal up the room.

Pocket doors don't tend to have a firm seal like regular doors - they just kind of go up to the jamb and stop. Does anyone have experience with pocket doors that have a good tight seal around them? Any suggestions or advice?

Good luck;
I was all set to use pocket doors during my framing 11/2007, then read horror stories here about people trying to do what you are asking, so went "open 6 foot wide" for now, and later will add double french outside doors there (w/seal).

A quick search should turn up a few threads for you.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/gtsearch.php?cx=001381781930431233427%3Apbbbasrrsh8&cof=FORID%3A11&q=pocket+door&sa=Search#1343

indygreg is using pocket doors in his completely over the top build (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=761723)...not sure of the sound isolation properties though.

I am on bended knee imploring that you don't do this. These doors are about impossible to seal effectively, and the hollow wall cavities are also going to cause problems.

Man, I was afraid that there was no good solution.

OK, so I'm going to turn this into an advice thread.

I've attached a sketch of my room. Not to scale, but close.

I'd prefer a pocket door mostly because there's already a mounting device for a track there, as well as a hollow wall for it. To put a regular door in, I'd have to rip out the jamb, put a new jamb in, and fill in the space around it because it'd probably be less than 35 inches wide. I'd also wind up repainting that part of the wall.

I'm wondering about the possibility of something that the door can slide into on the right (in the image) side - Maybe attach some 2x2s to the jamb that the door would slide between. Pad them, so that the door couldn't rattle. Anyone ever seen anything like that?

Of course, a regular door would also allow me to put insulation in that hollow wall cavity to cut down on sound escape.

Any thoughts?

I have pocket doors leading into one side of my room. I haven't noticed any rattling or other strange noises coming from the doors. This is with my system running pretty close to uncomfortable levels and me standing right next to the doors on the outside of the room. Of course, strict sound isolation wasn't a big parameter when I planned out the room. Something which does help a bit with the doors is that there is a latching mechanism which locks the two doors together I had installed.

The pocket doors or the doors to the right in the pic:

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b173/zx10guy/home%20theater/backleft_040608.jpg

I have poket doors. I added some weather seal to the joint where they butt up against each other, and that helps.

I also made sure they contacted the carpet on the bottom.

Here they are while constuction was still under way:

http://caesare.homeip.net:32171/basement/slides/IMG_1877.jpg

Beautiful doors!

It's a matter of practicality. If you want / need pocket doors, they function great. They will not isolate sound, however. So you have to weigh what you want.

You are much better off converting the pocket doors to sealed exterior french doors - even better massive solid core double doors. Buy the prehung versions at the orange apron store it is less work - you can even have them install them for a bit more if it is too hard to DIY.

Takes up just as much wall space as long as you have the open swing space - which you will have - since you don't want to have any seats near the door anyways! But you will get a better sound isolation result.

see the "I shoulda" sticky in this forum - as in "I shoulda" took the afternoon to tackle the doors. Sound isolation only becomes a concern after the HT is done when the WAF keeps saying - "turn your movie down" - and the Daddy keeps saying to the kids - "keep it down - trying to watch a movie"! But by then you can only say "I shoulda"....

You are much better off converting the pocket doors to sealed exterior french doors - even better massive solid core double doors.

Takes up just as much wall space as long as you have the open swing space.

There ya go!

i guess i am the odd man out here. everyone told me what a mess i would have with pocket doors. we bought a very good one and i have zero issues so far. i have 4 15" drivers in an LLT sub with 2400 watts driving it and not a rattle. the door stops some sound but i have the door at the top of the steps out of the basement sealed and the two together do the job as well as it can be done. with the sub run up to speed the doors are kind of meaningless.

greg