The Arizona Basement Build - Page 3

Thanks for stopping by Vic. Good to see another Arizonan around.

I almost jumped at an RS-45 when they were on preorder - no doubt the cause for the RS-40 price drop. I haven't got a projector yet, but I'm looking for one with Lens Memory to painlessly switch between 16:9 and 2.35. I still have a while until I need a projector so might as well see if there is anything exciting at CES.

Good luck with the theater build, I'll keep an eye on your thread.

I detailed some of the recent progress in the last couple posts. Here are some pics. I know I said I'd cleanup first, but I have a feeling you guys will understand.

Let's start with a couple inside the theater room.

Looking into the back of the theater:


Looking toward the theater door. Note the subpanel is in the theater unfortunately.


Conduit that runs from the equipment closet to the projector. 1.5". Still need to figure out how that is going to feed down below the DD. Also with all conduit, I'm planning on running the wires I know I need outside the conduit and save the conduit for future runs. That seems to be the best approach.


From the theater room looking out. Notice the double frames for communicating doors.


From the "lobby" looking into the theater.


From the office doors looking toward the theater.


Equipment closet. Note the double 20 amp outlets. One will be powerbridged to the projector mounting location.


Equipment closet access panel frameout incase I want to access the back of the equipment closet. Read: In case I run out of budget or patience to build a pullout/rotating rack.


Equipment closet ceiling. Note the super quiet .3 sones Panasonic 50cfm low profile exhaust fan. The blue box for the thermostat to control it. Ceiling access panel frameout to the left of the fan. Wires will come in behind the fan and/or behind the access panel.


Wetbar area, allows for 5x5 counter. Room enough for a fridge, a sink, and some sort of lazy susan in the corner (or maybe a kegerator tap sticking through the counter?) I left an extra outlet down there just in case.


Shower/tub rough in. Had to bring a wall out about 6" or so because the room was longer than the tub length. Went ahead and added a shelf. Cement boarded for ceramic tile install.


Under stairs cat box access panel framing. I know what you are thinking... Yes I am going to be very good at building access panels when this is all said and done. Floor and floor framing is already epoxied since the damn cat can't seem to pee inside his box.


Hardyboard. Soooo much nicer to work with than cement board. Will be using for the backer boxes.


Low Voltage. Will hopefully be going in this weekend.


That pretty much concludes the tour, but since I am in the picture mood. Here are a couple other challenges that I need to work through. Will be talking to Ted about these.

Window Sills. Casing that the window sits in is some sort of plastic or fiberglass shell that is mostly filled with concrete, although some hollow spots exist. Framing is even with the lower portion of that shell. Jog in the shell is about 1".


Existing HVAC vents. There are two of them in the room. Ted talked about possibly using clips and channel up there in the joist area to box them in since the sound will shoot up through them. Still need to figure this part out.


Time to clean.

It seems the longer I go in between updates, the harder it is to come back and provide an update. But I am going to force myself to break the self perpetuating cycle and give a status update. I get sticker shock at the last post date and I even got the depressing 'old thread warning'.

Definitely not as much happening as I would have liked, and definitely, definitely not as much as the WAF would have liked. I received the 'Lets hire out the rest, because you aren't moving fast enough' talk. Challenge accepted.

Since my last post

- Backer boxes for cans built and situated up in the ceiling. I used a temporary support to balance them between the joists. They are sitting 1/2" below where the backside of the first layer will go, so I can either remove the temp support or applying the first layer will cause the support to move up 1/2" from the joist.

- Backer boxes for HVAC vents. I couldn't make these as long as I wanted because of how the existing vents came into the theater, as well as the fact that I have a lot of blocking in the ceiling between the joists. However, it's better than nothing. Bought some RSIC clips from Ted because these suckers are pretty heavy.

- Finished all low voltage wiring. Ran speaker cable and ethernet to riser for future use.

- Added putty pads to all boxes and extended them out using the built in mechanism. These look to extend to just short of the first layer.

- Purchased further box extenders. These are to go on the outside of the drywall and slip inside the current box.

- Decided to do 5/8" OSB for the first layer despite the fact that it doesn't have the full density of the 5/8" drywall. I think this will help logistically set all my boxes and wall outlets because I plan to hire out the drywall.

- Ordered insulation and hat channel. Hat channel ended up being Clark Dietrich and about 2 9/16" width, so perfect fit for the clips.

- Last weekend started installing insulation. Probably 80% finished with the walls at this point.

Goal is to have drywall done in 30 days.

Also forgot to mention, I had a company come in and grind down a hump in the concrete slab over in the office area as well as installed all the clips on wall and ceiling in the HT.

Here is a quick picture of the backer box for the supply vents. You can see the supports holding it up in the joist space and you can see the limited room available to build a true box for the entire duct run.

There is a difference for sure. For me, I would not say it was a huge impact immediately, but I feel that it has made more of a difference as time has gone on. I chalk that up to GG curing time but maybe it's just psycho acoustic.

Also keep in mind that I only did one layer in both the theater and the other side of the basement where I am going to put my office. This is per Ted's recommendation because I have carpet over my theater and am not very worried about footfall traffic and I have tile over my office, and while I don't need it to be theater quiet, I did want to take the edge off the footfall noise. For hardwood over a theater, I think the consensus is to go with DD/GG onto the subfloor.

You can contact Ted at the Soundproofing Company for an instruction manual on how to construct the backer box. Even a novice like me can follow it, so highly recommended.

I have 13 total including the HVAC ones. It's probably not recommended to have so many holes in your theater, but I wanted a lot of light as mine is more of a hybrid theater / living area.

The can light boxes inside layer is hardyboard (to deal with the heat) and the hvac ones are just two layers of 1/2" osb. The hvac ones are very heavy so I will probably not let those rest on the first layer without some additional support.

Here is another shot of some more backer boxes.

And I have to say that this process was concerning me from a logistic standpoint. Trying to do this while a drywall crew is moving 100 mph seemed like a huge potential frustration, so I've decided to do the first layer myself so that I can move at a snail's pace. Also plan to do the first layer in OSB.

BIG, would you recommend cutting the hole for the can lights after the first layer goes up, or is it better to wait until both layers are done. I was thinking to do it after the first layer.

The last three weekends I've locked myself in the basement, but I feel like I've made a lot of progress. The first 80% of the insulation goes really fast, but all the little cuts and extra things takes just as long if not longer. I'm doing the whole basement at one time (about 1000sf) with 9' walls. I could only find 96" batts so there are a lot of cuts to make. The walls are all done now, (yay!).

I then focused on the theater ceiling, since I need to get channel and osb on before drywall. I wanted to purchase R19 faced, 24" OC, but the supply place I was going through only had unfaced, 24" OC, 4ft batts, that covered 144 sq ft. I could get the faced stuff from big box, but it is 175% the price and covers less sq footage. My joists are open truss web joists, so even though they are 24" OC, there is only 19-21" between the joists, depending on how crooked they are. So yeah, the insulation doesn't fit perfect, but friction keeps it up there. I bought insulation hangers and those vinyl straps used for HVAC lines as backup just in case I needed some extra support. So even though the insulation fits up there, between the HVAC ducts, conduit, wiring, water pipes, backer boxes, and blocking, there is so much stuff to work around that I rarely get to use an unaltered 4 ft length, which makes the installation take forever. I finally finished this yesterday.

Last night after I finished the ceiling insulation, I started to install the hat channel into the clips that were previously installed and spaced out. I was missing 5 clips, so I ordered 15 from Ted the other day, thinking that was way overkill, but then I just realized last night that I need to add extra clips for all the splices. I worked and reworked the clip spacing plan but kept coming up 1 or 2 short. On top of all that, a handful of my wall clips in the corners were too close since they were installed prior to having any actual channel. So went too bed discouraged, but woke up early and started to install the channel on the ceiling. I found two rows where I could use the existing ones to border the splice I needed in that row, which allowed me to have exactly the number I need.

I also pulled some favors and some trucks to meet me down at the big box to pick up the OSB for first layer of the theater this afternoon. After hauling 36 sheets home and moving 24 of those to the basement (left the rest in the garage for cuts), I was pretty dead, but I was able to finish up the ceiling channel and install the first osb sheet on the ceiling. I'm not quite sure the best practice for doing this, but I ended up just measuring from the edges and drawing the backer box outline on the OSB itself. Not sure how well that will work for the others that are further from the wall though. I also am not sure if it would be better to cut the hole for the can light before I put the sheet up or after it's up there. Everything looks pretty good, I think, with the exception of two things.

1.) Corner is a bit out of square so the bead of caulk I put on the edges didn't seal very well. Planning to seal the edge against the wall before putting the wall OSB up. Hopefully this issue doesn't cascade and become a larger issue as I continue.

2.) A bit more of a concern is that there is one spot where the OSB doesn't seem to be pulling tight to the channel. It's on the 4th channel over from the wall and looks to be only in the one spot. For that particular channel, I screwed that spot first, it seems to pull tight , but then popped down (or the channel popped up). I used a second screw and it drew close again, but when I did the spot 12" down the channel, it drew tight, and my original spot popped back down again, A third screw didn't help matters and they just spin now. So its almost like the channel is a bit bent here, or the joist height is a bit off in this area. I'm not really sure. Anyone want to comment if I should be concerned with this?

Here are some pics:

The first board


Here is a picture of where the screws are not pulling tight. You can see the space between the top of the OSB and bottom of channel and the screws.

Edited by jcorbin - 6/10/12 at 9:22pm

To clarify, its not the corner with the issue. It's the 4th channel over from the wall. I just checked it again and found that the problem is not the OSB. The OSB is straight and level. For some reason that particular channel is higher then all the rest. If I put a 4ft level on the two adjacent channels, I can see that this particular channel is higher than the 3rd/5th channels. Let's call it 3/16". So to get it to draw up tight, I'm fighting the rigidity of the OSB within that 4 ft range, which is why it keeps popping down. Should I take this whole channel down and add some sort of shim to the clips? I need to check the rest of the ceiling first.

Alright so I went ahead and took down that board, but it was a lot tougher then I thought. Out of the 14 or so screws that I put in it, probably 6 of them would not come out, they just spun in place. I had to either push them from above in the channel or get a screwdriver wedged between the board and screw head to get them out. I'm not sure if that is indicative of a problem or not, but I'll talk about that shortly. Probably 10 or so of the screws left large craters (picture below) to the point that I will probably have to replace the channel so I can reinstall the board.

To answer BIG's observation from the picture, there was a fleck of OSB between one of the screws and the channel, but it looks worse on the picture then what it truly was. It definitely wasn't the reason the board wouldn't draw tight.

The real problem are the joist unevenness and I think it just manifests differently depending on which joist I placed my clip on for that particular row. I grabbed a laser level and attached it to a long board and did some measurements across the center of the room. In the one spot I checked, there is about .5" difference from one end of the room to the other. I'm reading up on a reliable way to find the lowest point in the room, and I guess I'll shim from there. I'm kind of mad I didn't do this earlier, like before I installed all my clips and channels. I've been exchanging some emails with Ted and he's suggested metal washers to be used as spacers, but I could only find 1/16" thick washers, so if I use them I may need quite a lot of them.

Also, I assume that I may have the same issue with the walls, since I didn't frame them, they are not exactly all super straight. Can anyone speak from experience if the walls are less susceptible to being uneven?

So being that I may need to uninstall and reinstall nearly every clip, lets revisit the materials I am using:

- Clip to Joist screw. I used a 2" #8 star drive deck screw. Grip Rite brand. They seem to be good, but I noticed the threads don't go all the way through the screw. Should I switch these out for something else now that I have the opportunity?


- OSB to channel screw. Using 1 1/4" #6 fine threaded. I'm using a collated version in a screw gun. This thing whips them in there, but maybe this is part of my problem. Could it be too powerful, causing the screws to not catch right and rip into the channel? Should I switch these out for something else?


Here is a picture of the channel with the divot I mentioned. I assume these were created either when installing them and the OSB popped down, or when I took all the screws out. Either way, I would have to hammer them back in or replace the channel before reinstalling the osb.


Ugh, I'm pretty discouraged right now, and have quite the headache.

Thanks for the feedback. The builder actually did fur out some 2x4s with this thick heavy cardboard like material. I'll probably go ahead and check them all out while I am doing the ceiling.

The bad news is this totally blows my goal of drywall by the end of the month. To keep things moving (and to get my daughter her own room upstairs), I've decided to bid out drywall for the rest of the basement so it is not held up by the theater.

Plan is to have a false wall front and acoustical panels on the side walls, where I can, but not linacoustic or fabric up to ear level or anything like that. Back will be a shallow row of lower cabinets and some bass traps. You are right that as most will be covered, I don't need to worry all that much, but I think I will try to smooth them out a bit.

Somehow I missed your post Pete. It does make sense that because I am using OSB that I might have to use a screw that is different then the standard fine threaded type s drywall screw advice for DD. Do you think I can find screws like that at the big box? Any idea how they will be labeled?

So drywall plans have changed once again. As of my last set of posts, I was planning to do the rest of the basement first and then the theater. However after calling at least 6 drywall companies, it's been difficult to find one that is not flaky and not super busy. 2 of them actually came out and took measurements and did not even bother to send me the estimate. Found one company that seems professional. Their price ended up being about 1.15 sq ft, which is a bit higher then going rate around here but I felt the most comfortable with them, which goes a long way. Unfortunately my traveling schedule for July is even worse then this month, so I am looking at the end of July to get drywall done for the entire basement all at once.

BTW, loved the look on people's faces when I showed them the theater space. I had one guy diagramming out RC channel and 6 layers of drywall/soundboard as the ultimate solution. For some reason I felt bad telling him that I found a better/easier way. I realized how much I've learned over the course of this project as I explained the reasoning behind everything to various contractors. Thanks Ted!

Since I love changing the theater plan constantly, I've reverted back to doing just a single door into the theater and making the second framed door as an arched passageway (that matches all the upstairs passageways). If sound containment starts to be an issue then I can always rip it out and put a 2nd door in there later down the road. I apparently have trouble walking the line between dedicated theater and family media space so I find myself jumping back and forth from day to day.

Now that I am down to one door, I figure that one door matters a little more so I think I will be going with a flush jeld wen pro core door. The inside will be an acoustical panel mounted on the door, but the outside I'm a bit worried that the flush look will be super plain. Trying to come up with a plan for decoration.

Plan this weekend is to try and level all the clips. Wish me luck.

Update! Clips have been leveled (smoothed) and OSB is up on the walls and ceiling! Starting to finally look like a room. I had to bring in some help to get it done however.

To level the clips I started messing with a laser level and measuring across channels and across joists. While this is probably a fast way of doing it, I just didn't have a good enough laser level to be confident in what I was seeing. Ended up getting a 6ft bubble level and going clip to clip, joist to joist to find the lowest spot., which actually took quite a while. After the lowest spot was identified, I could branch out from there to other clips. For the ones adjacent to the lowest spot, I started using stacks of washers. Each clip would be assigned a number indicating the number of washers needed to bring that clip down to the lowest clip. Once each clip was leveled, I could branch from that clip to other adjacent clips. Fairly early on in the process, it was obvious there weren't enough washers to go around, plus dealing with washers is a pain. So a bunch of shims were cut down and marked with a number that indicated the washer equivalent. Most of the clips were 4s, 5s, and 6s. 7s were 1/2", and I had 2 clips in the very far corner that were actually 5/8" off.

Once the ceiling was all smoothed out, the OSB went up pretty easily after that. For the divot issue I posted above, any protrusions were hammered in. It's a good thing I didn't try to replace those sections because I had purchased JUST enough channel to do the walls and ceiling. I ended up ditching the collated screw gun, which was a little disappointing, but it served its purpose well putting the drywall up between the joists. It just didn't have enough torque control on it. So I ended up ripping out all the fine screws from the collated plastic since I didn't want them to go to waste and used a regular drill with a torque setting in the mid 20s and a feather touch on the trigger. I still had the issue where the OSB would initially pull away from the channel, but then it would pull tight in 99% of the cases. After the 100th screw, I was getting pretty good at feathering it in.

Luckily the walls went up without much shimming, although I did have to do some sistering in the corner where things got just too tight. With 9' walls, the room has a seam across the top, with that top piece only on one channel. Because it only hit one channel, we put a support board on the seam from behind. Windows and doors were a pain to cut, but easier when my helpers are good with the circular saw.

Will post some pictures later tonight.