Desert Sunset Theater Build - Page 9

I have a sander that I can hook up to the vac but I just never bother to hook it up.

The door has been hung. I put quite a bit of reinforcement around the jamb particularly where the hinges go. It doesn't appear to have any sag so I think it is going to hold up. It is a very heavy door though. I still need to install the threshold and door seal.



It looks like the door is sagging a bit in this picture, but the door is just opened a bit which makes the bottom appear uneven.

Now that the door is installed and the room is fairly sealed off the room is very quiet in there now. However I noticed that the a/c condenser lines make an annoying buzz when in operation. I've never noticed them making noise before but the quiet and live room really makes it so you can hear them. I hope it will not be an issue when it is enclosed in the soffit but I may have to take some measures to isolate them.

Sorry for the lack of updates, Summer vacation, and taking the scouts for a week of scout camp has gotten in the way of progress on the theater. Should be able to make some progress the next few weeks.

Not if I keep going at the pace I've been going the last month. Hardly have done anything. I'm ready to get back going full bore again.

I have been making some progress on the theater this week. The drywall mud is almost done. One final touchup coat on the walls should do it. I only put a single coat on the ceiling since it will be covered by the star ceiling panels. Figured there was no point in spending a lot of time on it. Plan to get started on the soffits this week.

I have 2 return air ducts that go through the ceiling that I needed to deal with before installing the soffits. I had to come up with a way to decouple the ceiling from the joist so I came up with this solution. The first picture shows the gap between the ceiling and the joists. I put a rubber membrane to connect the sections together. I cut up some hat channel to make a metal clamp to hold the rubber membrane in place. I then sealed it off with aluminum tape. This is the best solution I could think of but if anyone has any other ideas that might work better I'm open to suggestions.

I still have not sealed the door and the return air will not be isolated until the soffit is up. I will take some measurements once I have the system set up and everything done. I think the reason many people do not take measurements is that it is readily apparent just being in the room. Even without the door sealed it seems very quiet in the room as long as you are very still. The room is still very live with no treatments up. When my air conditioner is running the condenser lines seem very loud against the quiet background. I never noticed the noise they made before. Hopefully I will not hear them once they are sealed up in the soffit.

Had a new toy for the theater waiting for me when I got home yesterday. Need to get this thing figured out.

I did end up connecting the IB to the wall. My original plans were to decouple the manifolds like moggie did in his build. I had a discussion about decoupling the manifolds over at the IB cult forum and the consensus was that I should couple the manifolds to the wall. I hope I do not regret it later. With the opposed drivers and the weight of that wall (triple layer with osb and 2 layers of drywall) I think it is going to be solid.

I framed all the soffits over the weekend. Only part remaining is the radius curve on the soffit for the screenwall. Had to stop before I could get the room cleaned up so I did not take pictures but will get some pictures up of the soffits tonight.

Here is the soffit work I did over the weekend. I put up the curve for the screenwall tonight.



Better shot of the curve.

Here is the soffit at the rear of the room.

The soffit dimensions are 10" by 30" A bit bigger than I would have liked but it was the width I needed for the HVAC for the theater and the room above. Now that it is up I am pleased with the look. The star ceiling will be about 9'8" wide.

The ceiling height is 8'6 or so after the clips and channel and all the drywall were in. There's plenty of clearance now but I'm a bit worried about the ceiling height where the riser is going to be.

I also mocked up some columns last night to figure out final placement so I could run some lighting. My columns will be small - 10" wide x 5" deep. They will just hold an electrical outlet and will have an acrylic or glass panel for lighting.



I still haven't made my final decision on the recessed backlit panel yet but I'm thinking something like this.

I was thinking something along the lines of one of those height bars like they have in parking garages. I'll put it at the entrance to the theater and if your over 6'6 or something you will not be allowed in.

Even though I wish I had another foot of height - I am glad to have what I have- My last basement theater had 7'8 ceilings and the basement before that had 6'10 ceilings (1930's house).

I have an HVAC question I was hoping I could find an answer to. I do not have a zoned system for the theater but I was contemplating putting in an electric damper on the theater. I have other basement vents closed off or partially shut because it gets cold in the basement in the summer while trying to cool the main floor. (the third floor upstairs is on a separate thermostat but basement and main floor share a unit.) With an electric damper (normally open) I can flip a switch to cut off the air to the room when not in use or not needed. The dampers I have been looking at run on a 24 v transformer. Is there a way to wire this to a remote controlled switch or do those switches need a 120v ac connection to work. I'd like to be able to control the damper with my remote control so it could be opened / closed easily. Has anyone done anything similar? Would this cause me any problems having a damper on a non zoned system. I figured it would be the same as manually shutting the vents.