The Marine's basement theater build

So I recently purchased a house last September. One of my requirements was a suitable space for a dedicated theater. I had to compromise as the basement ended up having a fireplace and I don't want to wall it over. I've torn down the ceiling and most of the walls, but it has been a slow start as one of the walls leaks and I wanted to be very sure no water gets in before I started my build. It is being taken care of finally and I am at the point that I need help making design decisions.

I already have the audio and video handled by the following

3 Klipsch KL-650-THX for front speakers
2 Klipsch KS-525-THX surrounds for the sides
2 Klipsch KL-650-THX for the rear speakers
all being driven by a Pioneer SC-07
powered sub is a JL Fathom F113
projector is a Mitsubishi HC1500

The room is 13 feet wide by 19 feet 9 inches long and 7 feet 1 inch tall

I will double drywall with a layer of green glue inbetween. I know sound will get out the chimney but I will either create a plug for it or live with some sound loss via the chimney.

The issue I'm facing is what to do with the doorway and HVAC.



I would like to maintain the opening width so I've toyed with either french doors or a sliding door that would slide inbetween a wall when opened. French doors opening in to the theater would hit the front left speaker, while opening out will block the bedroom basement door.



I was planning on moving the heating duct until I realized it is sitting next to a steel I-beam. I still may end up halving the height of the vent so I can build a soffit around it without sacrificing height. The I beam sitting at 6'4" and my height of 6'3" means space is at a premium. The duct is the main run for heating the 3 upstairs bedrooms.



It also is currently the duct for the movie room and basement bedroom.



The back wall currently has the circuit breaker on it. My electrician is moving both panels to the furnace room on the other side of the fireplace so I won't have to deal with having an access panel.



The idea is to have an electric screen built into the ceiling which can be raised and lowered about 2' out from the fireplace.

Next to the chimney will be a door to a rack of equipment



Here you can see the back of the front wall. So I should have easy access to the rear of the equipment.

I've been reading up on builds and hope I am off to a good start. Input and criticisms are appreciated. Thanks.

Even though there are few favorable posts about them I am very tempted to put a heavy pocket door in the entrance since soundproofing will already be somewhat compromised to have the fireplace.

Yes the panels will be out of the way and I could face everything to the back wall, however I like the idea of being able to raise the screen, turn on some good music and sit in a chair to enjoy a fire. It would also kill a small riser for a second row of seating, so I am hesitant to face the entire room away from the fireplace. I am not dead set on anything at this point and can definately see the benefit of the screen to the back wall, my google sketchup skills are quite lacking but I can surely try to post a crude overhead of the space.

I am not sure how many seats I can fit with 13' wide, after framing walls lets say 12 1/2 feet of working space. Maybe two rows of 3 seats or a row of 3 and a row of 4 if there's room.

Edit: first attempt at google sketch

Well this is a garage install rather than my basement..but unfortunately the sign was too big to fit anywhere else. I bought this sign from Studio 28, a Jack Loek's theater that was shut down not too far from my house. To the left of the sign is a door leading to the kitchen and a staircase that will take you into the basement where the theater will be.

The sign sat on the floor for a few months


The hanger was built with 5/8" plywood and 3/8" threaded rod


Getting it off the floor was the hardest part, had two guys holding the sign while a third threaded the first 2 of the 5 total bolts.


Finished product awaiting more insulation and drywalling.

I am looking to do an AT screen to have the center channel behind the screen. So putting the screen on the back wall would take a good 2' off the room length. It would open up the possibilities of a curved scope screen but would either limit me to one row of seating or covering up the fireplace. The 2nd row riser would be withing 2 feet of the fireplace which would make it unusable. I probably stared at the wall for 2 hours yesterday and I don't think there are any setups with the fireplace in the rear of the room that I'd like.

I think I'm going to end up sticking to my original idea. An electric drop down AT screen. The center channel will be in a false wall and the left and right will extend out past the screen.

My pocket door hardware came yesterday, a heavy duty track and dolly from KN Crowder. I am optimistic that with a combination of plywood and mass loaded vinyl I can create a solid core pocket door that will do ok at blocking sound, if not it was at least fun to try.

So my question is on the header. The finished door will probably weight around 350 lbs and the entire door track is 12' long. Would attaching it to a 4x4 work for such a length with the typical pocket door supports along its length? I want to avoid any connection to the I-beam right next to it as that would transmit sound from the door throughout the house. I can't find much information on building your own frame for a pocket door online.

oman, what are your gripes with the C channel type door as opposed to the I beam specifically? Its incapable of jumping the track without breaking completely, or do you just find that it glides more freely on the I beam style over the C channel type. My door is going to be a 6' x 6' homebrew door and will weight over 300 lbs, there weren't a plethora of options for a 12' track length rated to 400 lbs.

Ted, ok good to know that my focus needs to be on making the door seal well and then deal with the large open cavity. Do you know of any good weatherstripping that the top and bottom of the door can slide against? I have some ideas for how I can add weatherstriping to the sides but am not sure how well the wood would slide against weatherstriping on the top and bottom.

Ted,

the whole reason to post on the forums is to learn from more knowledgeable people such as yourself. As for the word impossible, I think that gets thrown around by people because its more effort than its worth and would be cost prohibitive or would be inconvenient.

Thinking about it yesterday one way to overcome the sliding issue would be having weatherstriping along the bottom attached to a rail that clamped down when the door was shut. Think of the bottom of the door with guide wheels in a U channel, and the U channel turns into more of a V channel in the door closed position. The guide wheel would press on the bottom of the V, and the rail would pivot to clamp the weatherseal on the entire door edge.

I'm thinking I could get such a system to seal fairly well, the biggest problem would be the door would 'stick' when fully closed. You could motorize the rails to seal only when you want them to, but that adds cost, complexity, and more things that can break.

The easiest of the sides will be the edge with the door latch, the door can close fully to compress weatherstriping. I might have a 1/2" recessed space for the door to seal into.

My first idea for trying to keep sound out of the wall cavity was to make the door edge inside the wall shaped like a T that would seal flush with a split stud. However that would require a good header for the track as you couldn't use split headers to brace the track inside the cavity. Idea #2 would be a spring loaded door made up of MLV, DD + GG that when the door is fully closed would seal against the first split stud going into the wall cavity. Or maybe plywood as DD might be prone to breaking.

Hard to know what will last, anything being built into the wall needs to be very robust though.

Oman I've read your thread and liked your pocket door, so I had planned to do something like the foam board between the studs. Your theater helped me solidify the idea to eschew some of the established norms around here. If it doesn't turn out there's always theater build 2.0 right.

So for the top and back I had been considering a V shaped track that had rubber molding at the top and some kind of wheel holding it open. Then as the door closes the V would get narrower until it shut. Or a mousetrap like trigger where it clamps shut and you'd have to step on it to reset it to the open position. Another thought was to have the track shift so the door moved in an almost S pattern to press up against weather strippings. I have some windows that do so but since those don't really glide smoothly I don't really like any of those options.

Oman, I really like the acousticalsolutions suggestion you gave me, it was similar to something I would have wanted to build myself (but actually be reliable). I want to build one of them into the bottom of the door so its actually inbetween the finished wood. It wouldn't be an option on the top to be in the middle but would have to be alongside as to not interfere with the track. This is quickly adding a third a price to the door I wasn't expecting.. but having that on the bottom and a second on top and a regular door jamb to compress on the end will take care of 3 sides. Then dealing with sealing off the wall cavity from the door as well as a good seal at the inner door edge.

I've been quite busy with grad school so no progress has been made, I have contacted a builder to help me frame the door as I would hate for it to start sagging on me a year in after all this planning. Hopefully he'll come look at it this week sometime.

Well this door build is going even slower than anticipated.. but at least a hint of progress has been made. The ducting in the way has been replaced, but it didn't net as much clearance as I had discussed. I have the lumber I need, what I think I will do is glue a 1"x1"x12' strip of hard rubber to a 2x6 to decouple sound transmission to the I beam as much as possible (note attached image). Was hoping someone might know of something I could use for the rubber strip, trying to slice straight 12' sections off my roll of mass loaded vinyl and layering them doesn't sound like fun at all.

Good to know, I know some compromise will have to be made and I can accept that but any suggestions then for what I should fill in that space would be helpful. Would two 1/2" strips of wood with a layer of green glue provide any benefit or would the weight of the door(few hundred pounds) negate any such benefits.

I had considered a 'van sliding door' configuration but doing so would take a level of time/effort that I don't think will be worth it in the end. Ted I think those clips look like they should work for what I need but on the site are listed as 'This product cannot be purchased'. Any idea on how I might acquire some?

Building the door has been stalled by needing firm footing. My floor had 4-5 areas of 1/4" to 1/2" drop compared to a thin strip of level cement across one wall. So last week I had a buddy who's levelled floors before help me out.
Before


Past 2 bags of cement and starting on 3


End of day 2, 5 bags of cement used and had to pick up a sixth


Ended up using 3 buckets of auto-level to even out some of the spots, not pretty but its level



With the floor level, next step is to treat the walls with water sealant and then lay down the subfloor. Then will also finally be able to start building my door frame.

Yesterday I acid etched the walls and hopefully by the weekend will have a layer of drylock on the walls. After that I am looking at installing the dricore subfloor which recommends a 1/4" gap from the walls. I was thinking of using rigid foamboard directly on the concrete walls as insulation/spacer. Then framing 2x4 walls on top of the dricore with R-13 non faced insulation. So it would be foamboard, R-13 non faced batts, then 5/8" DD with green glue.

Thought I would ask before picking up the rigid foam if this is an ok approach for insulating the basement walls.

Ok, I was just basing that off the dricore installation pamphlet which recommended the walls on top of dricore. If I'll get a better seal I'll frame the walls on their own first. Would you still recommend a layer of rigid foamboard against the walls or could I instead just frame the 2x4 walls right next to the concrete and used faced R-13 insulation (already have some so unfaced would involved tearing off all the paper by hand) with DD + GG.