The Plains Theater - Page 16

Height from the concrete floor to the lowest hanging beam is 107-1/2" (8', 11-1/2"). I'm glad to have that much height to work with, but it is surprising by how quickly it disappears. Take away 2" for DD+GG, then another 15" for the riser and you're down to 7'-6" at the riser. Then take away the height for the soffit, and you're quickly down to it being cramped. All that said, I'm really fortunate to have the space I do to work with. I'm just trying to get the most out of it

It's been an while since I've posted an update, but the house is finished (with the exception of a few minor touch-ups, and we've moved in. I decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to post pictures of our then vacant house with all of our appliances in place. Now we're trying to actually move in, which is a daunting task to say the least. Our garage and most of the basement is stuffed with the boxes that we didn't want to deal with right away. It's going to take a while to sort through all of that. I didn't realize just how much stuff those professional movers can pack into one of those storage PODs. It was like the clown car at the circus when we started unloading the thing. Stuff just kept coming out of there.

Hopefully I can get some interesting updates posted pretty soon. I'm hoping to give Ted a call in the not too distant future and order some soundproofing supplies! And then the fun starts

Thanks, Tony. We are certainly excited about the new house, and more than a little overwhelmed. I know what you mean by not needing stuff that's been packed up. Most of our stuff has been in storage for almost two years now. It's a little odd going through it after so long. I sorta feel the same as you. If I haven't needed it in all this time, do I really even need to open the boxes

I have a tiny bit of progress to report. I'm in the cue for the AVS Pro Theater Layout. Hopefully within the next few weeks I'll have some plans and I can really get started.

I do, however, have a few issues that are troubling me. First, I took a closer look at my ceiling height on the riser. I have 9' ceilings, but my riser is 15-1/2". Assuming I drop my ceiling below the beam in my theater, that only leaves me with 7-1/2" above my door OPENING (not including any trim). I would like to have an 8" soffit to run my ductwork in. Any thoughts on minimum height between the top of the door opening and the soffit?

Next, I have an engineered flooring system in my theater, but because the floor above has lots of open areas, they had to double up and even triple some of the I-beams along with some LVL's. The problem is that this leaves a hollow cavity between the beams that I can't get insulation into. Has anyone else run into an issue like this? I'm planning to talk to Ted about it, but I'm curious as to what others have done as well.

Here's a render that is pretty close to accurate as far as beam locations. This is looking down on the ceiling framing, so imagine standing on the second floor looking down onto the theater ceiling. There are several places where they had to double/triple beams or put I-beams next to LVLs (I count 9 or 10). You can imagine with a layout like this that the beam spacing is all over the place.

Except for the LVL's, the floor is supported by wooden I-beams. So everywhere there are two or more butted together (or an I-beam butted to an LVL) I will not be able to get pink fluffy insulation between them. Here's another view to hopefully clarify a bit.

THANK YOU! I was beginning to worry!

The more votes for don't worry the better Would it be advisable to put acoustic caulk along the seam where the two joists meet ( or almost meet). Of course, the pipes going through them in places would probably make that pointless.

A bit of a change of topic, but I've got another thread going to try to work out my soffit and HVAC design. I'll post an abbreviated version here just so I've got it all in one place. My riser height is causing me to limit the height of my soffit. I'd originally planned to run my HVAC supply and dead vent ducting through my soffits, but it doesn't look like it will accommodate that. These first two renders show how I'd originally planned for the HVAC supply and crossover supply to enter the theater. I'm afraid this wouldn't allow a long enough stretch of duct in the soffit to adequately attenuate any sound in it. It also cuts off the path for my exhaust to get to the front of the room. So, I'm revisiting an idea that I'd sort of given up on which is running my exhaust duct out through my riser.





I'm also considering running my two supply lines around the front of my theater and entering behind the screen wall. From there I could enter the soffit above my screen. Also, the area behind the front wall of the theater is unfinished storage, so I can build as many dead vents as I like. The downside is the two supply lines will be VERY LONG! If anyone has any advice on how long is too long, it would be much appreciated!

TMcG, as always, thanks for the info!

I should have labeled my diagrams better, but I have one 8" forced air HVAC supply. Theoretically, it will supply enough cool air to keep the room cool with 8 guests. However, it's not enough to supply the recommended 6 air exchanges. So, I'm planning to add another duct from an adjacent room (no inline fan), and a single exhaust duct with a 400 cfm inline fan. The idea being this would pull air from the adjacent room to supplement cooling and provide enough air exchanges, as well as squeeze a little extra flow from my one HVAC supply. That particular fan has an 8" inlet, so I was planning to use an 8" exhaust duct through the riser and up to my soffit, and then split to two 6" ducts and two vents to reduce the velocity.

I do plan to have a soffit, but it will have to be about 7" deep (at most) due to my riser height. I'm afraid that's not going to be enough to use as a duct.

Also, there is no HVAC return in the basement. This is one of the few rubs I have with the way my house was built. There is a small return in the master bedroom on the main floor and large return in the foyer on the second floor which is essentially open to all three levels through the staircase. Short of losing another foot out of my wife's closet, there really isn't a place to put a return. I spent a lot of time walking the house trying to find a place before we drywalled. Between the LVL's in the basement and the open floor plan, there just isn't a place for another 10" line going from the basement to the attic.

I didn't stop to run the numbers on the two 6" ducts vs the single 8" as I assumed the total cross-sectional area would be higher. It is, but not nearly as much as I would have expected! Two 6" ducts has a total CSA of ~57 in^2 and an single 8" is ~50 in^2. Seems like there would be some velocity reduction there, but nothing like what I would want. I'm glad you brought that point up. looks like I'll be running two 8" ducts up to my soffit and building a soffit duct at the rear of the theater at the very least.

That is correct, and I plan to hold them to it. They're coming out this week to discuss some other issues we're seeing, and to bring me a copy of the manual J and D, but I haven't spoken with them about the theater yet. I want to come up with the best solution I can to give it the best shot of working. That way, if it doesn't provide the results I want, I can, with a clear conscious, call and make them fix it.

The basement is on a separate zone. Of course, I don't know what will happen if one zone is calling for heat, and another is calling for cooling. Fortunately, the way our basement is laid out, We could actually put in another dedicated unit without much trouble........... aside from the cost anyway........... and figuring out where to put the exterior unit......

Thanks for the info! I figured it was something pretty straight forward. That does give me something else to ask my HVAC contractor, though. I'd like to know what logic they used, and find out if it can be tweaked if need be.

So far I have mixed feelings about the zoned system, but I'm still waiting to pass judgement. On the hottest days in June/July (upper 90's with a few days in triple digits), our unit had trouble getting the house cooled back down during the "return" part of the schedule. Our house is foamed, so we're talking about going from 74 degrees at its warmest in the house back down to 72 degrees. It seemed it had the most trouble when two, or three (maybe even all four) zones were calling for cooling at the same time. It would often take until midnight or later to get cooled down. Obviously there is a lot going on in the house during that time, but that shouldn't matter.

We'll see. It could be as simple as a stuck damper.

You're absolutely right. There's no reason it should take that long. But, I'm trying not to make any judgements until they've had a chance to work out the bugs. Of course, now that the days are not as hot, it doesn't take nearly as long to cool off.

I have noticed it running quite a bit as well, but I hope you are right about the different zones. We'll see. Fingers crossed

Well, I finally got my load cal for the house, and it looks like they "designed" for ~170 cfm supply into the theater. He said that's probably a little higher than actual, but should be close. That agrees fairly well with the 160 cfm estimate from the chart on the first page of the thread, and it's a straight run right off of the basement trunk line. That should be more than adequate to cool the room with 8 people in it. That only leaves getting the air slowed down to limit the noise, and providing an exhaust.

Along those lines, I've made my first theater related purchase. I bought the 440 cfm Panasonic inline fan. It's not a particularly glamorous purchase, but it's a start. Now if I can only find some time to actually do something down there!

I have a very minor update that took quite a bit of time. I decided to go ahead and tidy up a few things while I'm waiting for my layout from Dennis. I swept and mopped the floor, and wow was it dirty. There was a lot of dirt and mud that had to be cleaned out, but hopefully I'll be able to go down there now without tracking dirt and drywall dust all over my house. I also took a little time and tidied up some of the wiring in my ceiling. There is a lot of it up there. Here are some very boring before and after pics, but we all know, "without pics, it didn't happen"

Before





After





This does bring to mind a question. Should I be concerned about those wires rattling in the ceiling? If so, is it better to have them lying in there loosely and then pack insulation around them, or is it better to tie them up as I did, and then apply the insulation? Or, option 3 I suppose is I'm worrying too much