The Esquire Theater!! Construction Begins... - Page 51

I'll have to get off my butt and do a bit of cleaning and/or work before you come.

When are you guys having an Albany HT meet?

Benji, the carpet looks GREAT! - the carpet joints are invisible and looks very neatly done.

Congratulations and good luck with the final stages of your build - enjoy it

Will

Guess my memeory is bad....I've got Berkline 12010s. They look really similar except mine don't have the stitching in the seat back and bottom. They do have it in the headrest and foot rest and that same little curve in the arm rest.

Enjoy!

How did the door seal end up performing? I need to get a few and not sure what company to go with.

I like them fine. After drywall and wall treatments I was somewhat width constrained and needed something a little smaller than the 090s that I would have preferred. On the real plus side, LOGANESS likes the smaller chair. I just find myself bumping the seat control button when I shift around. No big deal. Overall, I'm quite happy with them. And so far, they've stood up to the dog who refuses to get into the chair WITH the quilted pad covering it and climbs up the one without.

Hey Ben,

Build is looking great!

What is the stage covered/finished with?

Also take some up close pics of the door seals when you install them.

Ben, it's looking great. I'll have to come by after my trip.

You might want to stop by and see how I did my door seals since I had a couple of issues and mine are the same as yours. Oh, and to pick up your threshold supplies!

Andreas, the seals are OK at this point?

It's really turning out great, Ben!

Ted, yes....although I need to finish caulking in a few spots around the door since I didn't before putting on a couple of pieces of drywall and the door jamb. I have some sound leakage, but it is likely from lack of caulk. I can't get give quite final judgement yet. Unfortunately my progress is really slow right now...or has been slow for a while, I should say....while Ben speeds up!

No, no way!

Hey Ben. Things are looking great. As I was reading your last post I kept thinking that you were going to have to delve into commercial levers to meet your needs, but congrats on the awesome deal you scored on the exact items you were looking for. We all know that rarely happens.......I guess we can chalk it up to Venus passing across the sun or something.

Regarding your heat issues....I did a cursory search of your thread and didn't see any really detailed pictures of the rack and/or room with the all the equipment installed. Is it an enclosed Middle Atlantic rack? Is it the whole room you are looking to bring to ambient. If your rack is closed you can always add Middle Atlantic whisper fans or use something like a "coolstack" from Active Thermal Management (http://www.activethermal.com/default.htm) to get the heat out of the rack. But then you have to get it out of the room. Active Thermal Management makes a product called "System 1" which you could use. Middle Atlantic makes a product called "Duct Cool". Both of these professional solutions come at a professional price. To extract the heat from the room you could use a simple Panasonic WHISPER bath fan (50 cfm should be plenty) and connect it to a digital high voltage thermostat, like the Honeywell TL8230A1003 for $48, along with some insulated 4" duct line running from your fan to your storage area. You'll save about $300 over the professional solutions, that's for sure. So if you could, please post some detailed pics of your equipment room.

I hope this info helps!

Yes, the Panasonic fans will definitely work. Given the size of your equipment room (I didn't realize it was that big), I would probably bump it up to an 80CFM model such as the Panasonic FV-08VK3 This fan will hook up to either a 4" or a 6" duct line directly, fyi. Panasonic also makes the exact same unit with a variable speed control to the fan, but probably not worth the extra expense.

Now, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the existing HVAC is a problem, unless it is a system 100% dedicated to the home theater zone. The problem is that given your northern climate, you are using the heating more than you would be using the cooling. As a consequence, your supply air will actually be supplying heat into your home theater equipment closet during your heating months. Having the return air there is no problem, provided there is enough supply to the whole room to equate to the air your are returning. So you have three options: 1. Remove the supply completely from your main supply trunk line and REUSE that line for the Panasonic fan to exhaust by discharge the heat; 2. Install very good dampers (ideally in two spots) where you can block the airflow coming through that supply during your heating months and then just separately install and duct the Panasonic fan, or 3. Re-route the supply into the main area of the theater and duct the Panasonic fan separately out of the equipment closet. Without researching it, I am not fully aware of what your total CFM input and output for the theater and equipment room is. But there is also one other complicating matter....like most well-built theaters with meticulous attention to detail to soundproof the room, the room is considered extremely tight. So it is absolutely critical that you get the total supply and total return as balanced (equal) as possible. Otherwise if you are returning more air through the HVAC than you are supplying AND you now have an 80 CFM Panasonic fan drafting air from the theater into the equipment room and then vented out, you could wind up with what's called a negative pressure situation (deficit of supply). This negative pressure will make your sealed door very difficult to close as you will be fighting the pressure of the incoming air to be in pressure balance. If I were you, I would probably hire a professional to come in with his CFM anemometer and make the definitive recommendation and/or adjustments to your primary HVAC supply and return, given that the 80CFM of air removal from the theater by the Panasonic fan is a fixed measurement. It might be $200, but money well-spent to get things dialed in right. An intermediary step would be if you have a local tool rental place that can rent you the cfm anemometer (typically a $200 tool) and take the measurements yourself during maximum heating and cooling cycles. You may then find a willing HVAC shop to help you through any changes that need to be made via phone with the experience and calculation tools they have at their disposal.

Regarding the hush box - I would probably skip it. Seems like a lot of hassle for only a little db reduction payoff. Now if the primary reason to do it is that you feel your room is getting warm over the course of a full day of movie-watching, especially with all the chairs filled, then exhausting that heat directly into the equipment room for removal probably is a good idea if there is no way to keep the room 100% comfortable through proper balancing of the supply and return lines in the theater. Some food for thought.
Edited by TMcG - 6/7/12 at 9:22am

Is your current HVAC system considered a dual zone system? The other question is if your dampers are what's called "normally open" or "normally closed". My hunch from your description is that they are "normally closed" and only open when called for by the theater thermostat. I see two problems - first, there would probably never be an instance where you would want the equipment room damper open during the heating season and second, if your theater stays at roughly the same temperature range without calling for heating or cooling, the air in that room may get a bit stale. The normal work-around for this issue is that you have the dampers open when you call for just the HVAC fan to run, thereby force-ventilating the room with ambient air.

I have to agree - the HVAC is by far the most overlooked item on the check list because it is so prohibitively expensive in most cases to modify an existing system or install a new dedicated system. It unbelievably difficult to stand back and cut a check for $4000 - $7000 for work that seems exceedingly high for labor and disproportionately low in actual materials cost. You will see in my construction thread (once I get it up and running) that I worked a deal with a local HVAC company to give me the design, materials, advice and installation of the main HVAC unit for about $6000 less than what they were asking. So they pulled the permit and then inspected my part of the work before completing their portion and having it inspected. They helped me to properly size the supply and return lines to the theater area, but I will probably be hiring Dennis to handle the subtle nuances of linear slot diffuser sizing for supply lines and any special magic, such as a dead vent, for the return. It's the best I could do on my budget without making it almost to the end and not having carpet, a screen, a projector and seating. I guess we'll see how well the design works in a few months.....

By the way, an alternative to buying a dedicated Middle Atlantic rack is simply buying the rack rails and mounting them to a framed opening, similar to a window. The rack shelves would be completely open and free-floating in the back which might make sense for your room vs. having something you may have to put on wheels to access the back for wiring / maintenance.

Very soon, my friend. I promised myself by next weekend I would get it up and running.

I lean towards simple/clean lines vs. ornate, so #1 appeals to me personally quite a bit more than #2.

I don't know what your personal style is, let alone the style of your house...but to my eyes you have a very modern looking theater with clean lines and colors. I think you have an opportunity to go with a more modern looking crown molding vs. the traditional styles you picked here. Something like THIS style from OVerstock.com has a very simple and clean line similar to your theater's style.

Although expensive, a good resource to look at crown molding profiles from every genre is www.invitinghome.com. I really like their Art Deco crowns. There is a contemporary crown molding called Memphis which you may like with your room.

What do you think of the 4" contemporary crown cove molding here as an idea?

Are you also looking at the possibility of creating a cove with the crown to illuminate with LEDs? If you are, you could even look at 8" deep by 3" or 4" high cove moldings which are specifically designed to provide a lit cove while maximizing ceiling headroom.
Edited by TMcG - 6/27/12 at 6:12am

Go with #1 looks like a winner

Agree with TMcG.