So after a long time dreaming, I am beginning my basement theater. My wife and I bought a house this past summer with an unfinished basement and we have been planning on finishing it before we even moved in. In our last house, I was using an old Panasonic AE300 and a home made screen in a non-dedicated room for a long time. So this will be quite a step up.

So here are the details:

Floor plan
This is the floor plan for the basement. The floor plan includes a storage room, a full bath, a “craft room” for my wife, a dry bar and the theater.
http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/Basement_Floorplan.jpg


To date, the wall framing is just about complete. I have completed framing for the storage room, bath, and craft room. The bathroom already was roughed in a for a full bath, which was a nice time saving.

This is looking into the craft room.
http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/P1060371.jpg

This is looking into the bar room.
http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/P1060373.jpg

And finally the theater.
http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/P1060372.jpg


The theater dimensions were pretty well laid out by the floor plan. The room is 14’ wide and 17 2/3’ long.. The 14” dimension is set by the sides of the basement. The 18 foot length was set by a “shear wall” that was framed with a double door opening. Since the shear wall keeps the foundation wall vertical, I left it as is. Now here is the tentative floor plan for the theater
http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/Theater_Seating.jpg


The plan for the theater room itself is more of an open floor plan. The double doors swing out wide to allow for full screen viewing when seated at the bar and connects the two rooms. The seating floor plan is I believe unique for the AVS Forum, but allows for traffic flow into the room. The couch is going to have no arm rests to allow a family member to lie down. (I am thinking of trying to get a couch that has a center section foot rest as well). I realize the outside seats are not going to enjoy the surround effects as much as the centered seats, but I think it’s a compromise I can live with.


I am still debating about the screen wall. With two rows of seating, the front row will be just about 12” back from the wall. I am debating between two different screens walls.

OPTION A: False wall 2’ from the back wall. This puts the screen 10’ from the back of the front row. I would probably go with a 90” wide 16:9 AT screen. I do like the idea of the AT screen, Not sure if I want to be just 10’ from screen, and 2’ can be a little tight.

OPTION B: Shadow box around a wall mounted screen. This puts the screen about 12’ from the back of the front row. Top mounted speaker to keep it out of children’s ears. Probably go with a 108” wide screen.

That’s all for now. Post more when I have the time.

FM, a couple of observations about your plan: one, IMO you don't need to sweat your front-row distance too much. If you're planning on a 1080p PJ, I think you're fine at either 10' or 12'. From what I've read, the general rule of thumb is anywhere between 1.2 - 1.5x screen width. Even at 10', that's 120", divided by 1.2 = a 100" wide screen, which is somewhere in the 110 - 114" range, like you're looking for. Of course, since it's a close call, you'll probably want to throw a PJ image up onto a wall and check the size to be sure, before you decide on a screen.

Two, are you sure you want to split your seating up like that? I know in smaller rooms like this there really is no bad seat, but to my eye your proposed layout only offers 1, at best, center seat. Maybe forgo the false-wall, like you were considering, move your back row forward a bit (it's not best for surround to have it pressed right up against the back wall anyway), center your seating more, and walk around from the back? Just a thought.

Good luck with your space,
CD

Thanks CD for the encouragement,

I am not sure how comfortable I (and more importantly, my wife) would be with a 1.2X seating distance. I know that 1.2 is a standard 1080 size, but my wife and I are used to an 80” wide screen at 11.” We need to figure out how large of a screen size for seating distance we like.

As far as the seating arrangement, I was thinking there were two good seats in the front row. I am somewhat concerned over getting decent surround for some of the edge seats. But, my wife is pretty well set on an open floor plan which requires the split in the seating arrangement. And since the best seat is mine, its an okay compromise.

Continuing my plans….

HVAC work
Above the theater room is the family room. Originally there was a large duct going down the center of the room that fed two vents on the side of the room that supplied air to the family room above. A friend of mine who does HVAC took it down for me to help raise the ceiling in the middle of the room. Now, instead, there is duct that runs up in between the floor joists at the back of the room. To feed the upstairs vents there is a flexible duct running along the sides of the room. You can see it in the picture below. I am thinking of trying to some OSB under the duct to give a little better sound insulation,

http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/P1060405-1.jpg

To feed the theater room he installed a flexible tube that runs along the side of the theater and vents near the middle of the room. You can see the air supply line for the theater hanging down in the picture below (as well as one of the supply lines going upstairs.. I am going to go and put some bends in the supply line. I am planning on a soffit roughly ~20 inches wide to cover the vents.

http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/P1060404.jpg

Unfortunately, there is no return trunk in the basement outside of the main line going straight down into the furnace about 15 feet from the theater. I am debating how badly I want to put in the return line. I have a little bit of space to shove some 6” flexible line in the soffit that runs outside the theater that hides the supply line.

The other thing I am debating is trying to put in a second supply line into the theater room. If I do go forward with the second line, I would run it on the other side of the room and have it come down over the second row of seats. I am kind of 50/50 on these proposals.

More to follow…

By the way, if anyone is wondering, there is drywall on the wall only because the previous owner hung drywall on the walls and I am in the process of taking it down.

Thanks CD for the encouragement,

I am not sure how comfortable I (and more importantly, my wife) would be with a 1.2X seating distance. I know that 1.2 is a standard 1080 size, but my wife and I are used to an 80” wide screen at 11.” We need to figure out how large of a screen size for seating distance we like.

As far as the seating arrangement, I was thinking there were two good seats in the front row. I am somewhat concerned over getting decent surround for some of the edge seats. But, my wife is pretty well set on an open floor plan which requires the split in the seating arrangement. And since the best seat is mine, its an okay compromise.

No getting around the WAF. I'm sure it will be just great either way. I would definitely get the PJ and play around with the image up on a wall before you decide on a screen size. I know you say you are used to 80" at 11', so 90" at 10' is definitely bigger, but there's an old adage in this forum...no one ever said "boy, I wish I had gotten a smaller screen" :D

If anything, give serious consideration to plan B; move your rows back and go a little bigger.

CD

Hi ya Family Man

I'm not a HVAC guy, but many on these boards have a lot of experience and one thing I've learned is if you don't have a return in the HT, then you won't get much from the supply. You need to pull air out of the room in order to put new air in. Otherwise you would have too much pressure and the supply won't push air into the room. Sure you'll get a little air as the room isn't 100% airtight, but it won't be what you are expecting. With a projector plus other HT equipment in the room and 5-people, you'll be generating a considerable amount of heat and will probably want too keep air moving.

Anyway that's my $.02 (that is about all it's worth)

For my build (I'm still researching) I'm thinking of two supplies and two returns.

You have a lot of potential in that space. I'm looking forward to reading about your progress.

Cheers.

Another Peoria person? Cant wait to see it finished!
Shaun

So I have a soundproofing question that I didn’t see addressed in my AVS/web searches. My basement are made from Superior Walls which are prefab foundation walls, you can see them in some of the pictures above. The walls have ¾” wood facing to attach drywall without framing. There is a pocket between the wood facing ~7” deep. See picture below or the following website for more details.
http://www.superiorwalls.com/index.php

http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/superiorwalls.jpg

So my question is how does this impact soundproofing? I was reading that the sound will transmit through the concrete. How much does the concrete transmit sound compared the wood frame? Can someone point me to a reference on that?

Relatedly, I am going to have ceiling vents for supply lines – the superior walls prevent the vent down the sides. Is there something that can be done to minimize sound leakage from that spot? I know you can create boxes to minimize leakage for ceiling cans, but the vent line can’t exactly be surround on all four sides. See picture below.

http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv109/Family_man9/P1060404.jpg

So any thoughts?

Hi ya Family Man

I'm not a HVAC guy, but many on these boards have a lot of experience and one thing I've learned is if you don't have a return in the HT, then you won't get much from the supply. You need to pull air out of the room in order to put new air in. Otherwise you would have too much pressure and the supply won't push air into the room. Sure you'll get a little air as the room isn't 100% airtight, but it won't be what you are expecting.

Cheers.

I was going to offer this same advice. Family_Man, if I'm reading you right, you currently don't have a return anywhere in your basement plans (i.e., not just in HT)? If this is correct, you need one. You need to more or less move the same volume of air out from the conditioned space as you plan to pump in. Otherwise you won't get the desired conditioning, circulating, dehumidifying, etc. effects you're after. The good news is tying a 2nd return (for your basement) into the existing return serving the 1st floor shouldn't be that big of an effort/expense....just need to figure out where the return can easily go that is somewhat central to the basement. However, if you're only talking about not having a return from the HT itself, but do/will have one elsewhere in the basement, this is not as big of a deal, but again the air in the HT still needs to be able to move outside the HT (think pressure) to get it's way to the return. Can accomplish this with simple venting between the rooms, under the doors, etc. I guess there's a trade off here between sound tightness and HVAC, but i think you'll want it. Or if the budget can allow, add a return vent from the HT and don't compromise that much if anything in terms of sound tightness...Definately consult with an HVAC guy (I am not)...enjoy!

Thanks for the HVAC advice, I do appreciate it. To clarify a bit, there is a central return air in the basement, but its centrally located in the basement away from the theater room. This is actually how the whole house is setup, with one main return vent on the 1st floor, and a main return vent on the 2nd floor, but no return lines in any of the rooms. Its not the best setup, but it is the way it is.

I did talk to my HVAC friend about the return line and he said your problems will be when keeping it closed for long periods of time. But to install the return line in my particular house would be a lot of extra money, time, and effort for the extra gain. There isn’t a good direct path without a lot of obstacles.

So my wife and I decided to proceed. I think she is okay with it since she isn’t really a big fan of the doors in the first place – she prefers the open floor plan. I like to doors because it will help me reduce sound from getting out of the room and up the stairwell, as well as a way to get an additional level of light control in the room.