Andy's Maple Ale Theatre

Hokay, let's try this again.

Based on how things are going, I probably should have called it Andy's Thread Of Mistakes I Have Made And Have Yet To Make.

After a brief false start I ended up back at the design table as the design just didn't feel right for what I wanted to do. Deep down I felt the previously selected area was a little awkward, and that the top part of my basement was where I wanted it.

Problem was that noisy furnace.

I took some time to get some quotes and opinions as to what I could do. Ideally I would slide the furnace and HWT into the corner, but that would cost $5-6k which is a huge chunk out of the budget for a little more room. So in the end I am going to compromise and move just the HWT and flip the furnace around so the service area is in the back.

On to the new design ...

So here is the new design:

General Components:

• 100” AT screen, with a DIY masking system to go out to 2.35:1 (115” width).
• 7.1 sound.
• Our current 4 Berklines as front row
• Couch/something on second row riser.
• Bar on far end.

The yellow star thing is a 7.1 speaker placement guide.
The round thing is a bean bag :-)



... and a side view (updated 11-04-12):

Here is a token before" . I've cleared a lot out, and put remaining in garage. Sorry sweetie, you can't put your car inside this winter.

You can kind of see what I have to work with: Just a few lightbulbs and one available outlet. Gotta like today's crank-em-out builders. (actually, my house is 7 years old, so I guess it has been going on for a while ) As many have noted in threads here before, they really don't bother at all about planning for future basement finishing.

A couple "starting again" images.

I had to strip off the blanket insulation on the one wall to fix a water/dampness issue. I then decided to remove all the blanket insulation where it didn't cover 80% of the wall. This will give me better insulation and an inch or two extra space as a bonus.

looking into theatre area:


from under stairs (rack area):

Typar is up along most of the walls, and a small framing piece is done. The subfloor will tighten the Typar as I will have a small lip going under the Delta-FL.

Why Typar? This was recommended to me and I have read a few discussions on this, mostly debating theory vs. reality. Typar is water vapour permeable (so it is not a vapour barrier) but is water impermeable. If Typar is indeed 1-way permeable to vapour then that is fantastic and it will draw moisture away from the insulation. If Typar is 2-way permeable, then from a vapour point-of-view it really does nothing and it acts essentially as a water barrier (a splash guard) which has some merit. Either case, it does not add a negative to the system.

Um, why one piece of flooring and one wall? What are you doing first ? I am doing the flooring first. In the pics you can see my subfloor is landscape fabric under Delta-FL under 5/8 T&G plywood. I believe the walls and floor need to breathe and work together, and to facilitate that the walls need to be on top of the floor. (yes, if I have a flood it will be a little harder to replace, but IMHO a flood of that size will have a huge impact regardless).

I did the short wall piece for two reasons: 1) so I can anchor the corner sheet of plywood (with appropriate gaps) and build the rest of the floor against it, and 2) it gave me something to do while I was collecting quotes to see what furnace modifications I could afford.

Entrance to area:


From under stairs (rack area):


From far corner (almost behind bar):

In this pic you can see I started flooring by the furnace, but depending on what I can do some of it may have to come out.

The landscape fabric was another one of those things that there is a bit of debate about.

My rationale:
- there is mention in the Delta installation guide about using it, and one poster actually talked to a Delta rep on the phone about it
- I bought some fabric and did a (very) crude test walking on some un-rolled Delta with and without the fabric. It did attenuate the clickity sound somewhat. Note that I did not use thick fabric, but rather very thin.
- it is going to cost me only $60 for enough to cover the entire basement
- you can't add it after !

The low cost and that last point helped. I am not worried about slowing down water but it is a good point to consider. Although the fabric is technically plastic (thus not organic) it could hold water for a while. As long as there is nothing organic for the water to feed on it will eventually work it's way down or be processed by the concrete.

As for the side-surrounds - you caught me !

I'm not sure how I am going to do them, and am procrastinating on that decision hoping something obvious will appear as the build goes on.

Currently i am thinking suspended or something built in soffits, but the furnace room is the real PITA from a good sound-field POV. Hopefully I can move it (but I doubt it).

Just an in-progress picture of the landscape fabric rolled out ready for another strip of Delta-FL. Easy stuff.

So the big news is that the HVAC guys were over and they flipped the furnace and moved the HWT. It was crazy busy - at one point I came down and there was no furnace at all ! I sadly didn't get a pic of it though.

As a result I now have room for the rear riser.

So here is the plan... (looking for feedback) ...

In the pic below I have marked where the riser will be. Note that I did not put sub-floor in this area. My main drain happens to be under the riser, so the plan is to keep it open(-ish) under the riser and extend the riser all the way to the furnace wall. This gives a nice big unimpeded path to the drain if there happens to be any issue with the HWT or furnace. You can also see my water meter in the back of the riser area as well.



(I'm going to have to move that hockey drying line soon - it gets in all the pictures!)

Good idea? Over-engineered ? Bad sound impact?

Maybe if I use thick enough lumber there should not be a problem ?

My original thought was to stop the Delta+plywood as shown in the image above, so there would be none under the riser at all. I could then do the hatch thing.

Are you saying I should fill in the riser space with Delta and plywood, except for about a square foot around the drain ?

Hmmm - I hadn't thought about the insulation part. Good point. I think I am going to finish it off as you suggest. Thanks!

Hi theW,

I could close the wall off by the stairs and put the screen there, however I then have a long walk around to get to the room. It also is a bit tight because the Berklines that we have measure 144" (!) when all put together -so they are hard to walk around. This is the same issue if I rotate 90degrees the other way, and I also have a fair bit more space lost behind the furnace I think.

It doesn't hurt to go play with it in Sketchup again...

Thanks for asking.

Actually that is the furnace room. Sorry if it wasn't too clear.

It's about as small as I can make it. Moving it was going to cost too much $$$.



The triangle part of the furnace is the angled ducting up to the ceiling. I don't have the ducts in Sketchup yet. Maybe eventually.

Hey Nick,

I've been reading your thread for a while (sub'd) as you are about a month or so ahead of me, which is great! (now i have to try and keep up! )

March break slowed things down, so I tried to at least finish the main wall (made up of 13 sub-walls) before I had to go away on business travel for over a week. Gotta use that lumber before I go or they will look like Twizzlers when I get back.

Mission accomplished (view from under stairs):


I had to spend a fair bit of time trying to ensure that the angled walls were symettrical and the back wall parallel to the viewing position. My concrete walls weren't, that's for sure !

Also had to move some ducting (my first !) and stick-build around a grey water pipe. I came up with what I think was a good idea to protect the PVC pipe once the wall goes up: I used the bottom track of a metal stud and tie-wrapped it to the PVC pipe as a nail protector. It fit just nicely with a bit of trimming. I used proper nail plates at the top of the framing. There is a Y adapter on the pipe right at the top, so it was a REAL pain framing around.



I plan to catch up with the floor when I return in a week and a half.

Cheers,

Andy

Ah - yay ! Back in the country and I had almost a full day of working in the basement on Sunday. Feels good to make some progress. I have a lot of catching up to do ... Nick's Homebrew is pulling way ahead !

I'm currently working back and forth between walls and floor (focus is on the wall, but doing floors as required to get under the floor) however I feel I must write an ode to my nail gun. I originally purchased my nail gun as a bit of a treat for doing the project myself. I got the individual components bit by bit as they came on sale last year. But now that I am well into framing I can't imagine working without it, particularly someone as time-constrained as myself.

So:

An Ode To My Nail Gun

I thought that hammering was no trouble
And needing a nail gun just made me chuckle
But with each nail it's shooting
That's one I'm not beating
While holding a stud and a level !




(hopefullly my walls are better than my poetry!)

For this weekend I will try to do some posting catch-up as well as basement progress. It's all very exciting as things are starting to take shape and the basement is starting to look more like ... a room ! (oooh)

Theatre area floor and exterior walls done. Next step will be enclosing the furnace area.

From the theatre area entry:


From under the stairs:


From the back corner bar area:


Glad to get the major stuff done there - I had to spend an entire evening fixing my early mistakes. I'm def getting better at some of this stuff !

BTW - notice the absence of my son's goalie gear !

For completeness, just adding the following planning image from another thread about what to do with my ceiling.

Happy Easter !

I got a fair bit of walls and floor stuff done on Friday and a bit of Saturday (family stuff the rest of the time) but the exciting news is my latest on-line find - the RACK !

I have been trolling the online ads for a while and after a few investigations have lucked out finding the following Digtal Equip rack:



For $100 it came with the nice front door, heavy back door, length extension, 3-fan unit, mega-heavy side panels ... even a 1U shelf and a sliding keyboard ! (apparently the monitor doesn't work so well).

As you can see, I broke it all down and I think I'm really just going to use the basic rack.

Best part is, after a can of spray paint it looks great:



The door you see here is now the back of the rack.

The timing is good as I will be getting to building the wall the rack is going to be in pretty soon.

Woohoo !