The Once and Future Theater - Page 4

Don't tell him that!

Thanks for stopping by CAVX. I appreciate your input - I've been reading your helpful and informative posts in the CIH areas for years now. Don't see you over here as much, and I'm glad to have you. Make yourself at home.

The screen I figure I'll build is 54 inches tall, in a room around 264 inches long - so that's on the small size of screens given your recommendation. 264/4.888 = 54. Being width limited, I knew CIH would present some challenges, but I'm happy with the screen idea at this point.

I bought more wood, so I took a picture.



Really, the wood is filler in this scenario. I was bringing the siding home, but it's fragile. So, I went ahead and bought a 2x12 to strap the siding to for the ride home. Even so, I managed to break two of the pieces of siding moving them around the house. Luckily, I had bought enough to make do with what I had. You can see the two broken pieces in the middle of the stack.

I know people always say that lumber yards and building supply companies offer better value than the big box stores, but I learned it for sure today. That said, you may not save on every thing you buy there. Lowe's price on the siding I bought (which they don't stock and need two weeks to get for in-store pickup) was more than $9/piece. The building supply company I bought from today sold them to me at $5.60 each. However, I think I paid $15 for the 2x12 while Lowe's had it for $13.something. At least in this case, I saved more than $25 and two weeks by driving a little farther to the building supply company (Carolina Lumber and Supply Company; for anyone near one of their locations, I have nothing bad to say about them).

Window? We don't need no stinking window!


You can see that there are a few ripples, but they're pretty subtle and I don't think they'll be very visible at all once it's caulked and painted (hopefully by Sunday). The unevenness is mostly due to the fact that I used 7/16 sheathing instead of 1/2 to match the old stuff better. Still, no regrets. I still have to finish the repair of the broken piece at the top right, but you can see here I have the flashing in place.

Just thought I'd bump this up with a note. Progress hasn't stopped, but it's not photo-worthy yet. I've gotten the caulk on the seems of the siding, but still not painted yet. Inside, we got the water pipe to the outdoor spigot moved. It was running across the bottom of several overhead floor joists, but now it runs parallel to the joists, freeing up space for the new isolated ceiling joists.

Also, I've opened up the space I'll need for the new doorway between the stair landing and the "anteroom" as I'll call it for now. My plans for the lobby space currently include (eventually) a diner booth and some bar space. More importantly, opening the doorway will let me set the outside riser framing at the same time as the wall framing. That will all need to be done prior to drywall to accommodate wiring and ducting. Once I get the trash out of there I'll post a new video.

I think I can - I think I can - I think I can...

Fred

The weather has been nice, but not too much of a distraction. Things go slowly around here with and without solo cups (which actually only make rare appearances). Still settling in to the "new" house as well as keeping up with the old one has taken more time that I would like - I just got my plasma hanging on the wall yesterday, and last week I was over at the rental re-caulking the tub. (I say that as though you all should be familiar with my home-ownership situation, but I don't think I've really posted about it. We tried to sell last summer, and failed to sell, but succeeded in renting. Luckily, the new house is less than a mile from the old, and the new tenants are good so far and are happy to do most of the lawn maintenance for me.)

I'm actually hoping to get some assistance around here. I need to get a couple electrical circuits cleaned up and one more water pipe position adjusted before I start framing.

Along those lines: If a fella (me) is going to run an AVR (possibly with multi-channel amp separate at some point in the future), media player, blu-ray player, sub amps totaling (potentially) 2000 watts, projector, and lights (incandescent, but potentially also LED or CFL on dimmers). How many circuits of what ratings would you want? I was figuring 20A for electronics (including projector), 20A for amplifiers, and 15A for lighting. Not sure if that's feasible, but if it is... adequate, overkill, insufficient? For details about the amps for the subs, see this link, which explains that each Dayton SA1000 amp develops 497W into 1 sub (8Ohm) or 950W into 4Ohms (2 subs). If I double up to four subs, that's almost 2000W (is that a peak rating or should I expect that to be more of an RMS rating?).

I realize that 2000W peak wouldn't likely trip a 15A circuit (even though it's 16 and some change amps), but I don't want the power supply to be a bottle neck - I remember reading FOH's posts about this family of topics a year or so ago, but failed to learn what he was recommending.

And thanks for the bump - it's nice to know that someone read this mess.

That some good thoughts. I have forgotten about seating, because I don't intend to pay extra for power recliners, but that doesn't mean that I won't end up with them, or want to plug in a laptop or something later, so thanks for being thorough.

I always forget about power wire gauge. So, that's the element in the equation that assures I don't get voltage drops when the subs bump hard, right?

Can you explain for me how to wire a three conductor cable for two circuits? I've never heard of that.

And Charlotte's not too far! It's only like five hours, right?

Ah! There it is! I was reading 12/3 and seeing black, white, and bare. The bare doesn't get counted... so 12/3 has four conductors (though maybe it's inappropriate to refer to the bare copper as a conductor, as it shouldn't be used to conduct anything normally) - no problem. Thanks for explaining.

Here's the good news: I don't think I'll be doing that anyway. It looks like I've got several 12/3 circuits running to the theater area already. Now that I know what to look for, I looked more closely. I'll still need to go through everything carefully, but I'm pretty sure I'm in good shape.

And thanks for the tips - both of you guys. On a lot of these issues I know just enough to be dangerous. I recognize my ignorance, but it's sometimes hard to get the rest of the way there. Luckily, you guys came along - I appreciate it.

...now where did I put my hammer...

My very generous FIL came over today and helped me sort through all of the wiring in the basement. We were able to identify two 20A circuits (12/2) with no real loads on them (for some reason they both have unused outlets in the cupboard under the stairs - I don't think Harry Potter is still living there) as well as an existing circuit or two with plenty of excess capacity for lighting. We also got some of the wiring reassigned to other circuits to make the breakers make more sense and simplify some of the junctions.

baby steps...

So, what's the right tool to nail a wall to a poured concrete floor?

hehehe...

Anyone have experience with this one?

Link to Home Depot

For $22 plus fasteners and cartridges, it's easily the best value, but I'm not sure it's the "right" tool. I'll only have 75 or so linear feet of wall to set, and technically, about half of it is going to be set on hardwood floor instead of directly on concrete.

I know that it seems everyone is obsessed with HVAC lately, and I'm not just jumping on the bandwagon, but it's been on my mind... some opinions and information would be useful. I suppose much of what I'm considering could be retrofit if need be, but I'd like to do it right once, the first time.

Anyway - to review: the basement has its own HVAC unit - an Amana air handler (without? emergency heat - not that I think I'll ever have use for that) and a heat pump outside. The air handler is in the closet under the stairs, which is very near, though not directly adjacent to the theater. It will be tasked with conditioning (mostly cooling) the basement, which will include: theater for 4-6, lobby area with popcorn machine and maybe other small appliances, exercise area (for one), and bathroom. Approximately 700 square feet - maybe 6000 cubic feet.

Clearly, the theater is the priority, and probably the most difficult to keep cool. Here's the air handler. What you can't see in the picture is the two additional lines coming out the top. They exit out the rear - one to the theater, and one to the lobby.

I didn't take a picture of the bottom, which sits up on a plywood box about 20 inches high, and has three return ducts - one from the exercise area, one from the lobby, and one from the stairwell. I'll re-purpose the stairwell return for the theater.

Here's the other side of the wall behind the air handler, showing the soffits that hold the two additional supplies - one for theater and one for lobby.


So, the $64,000 is: Can I expect that (with inline fans) I can keep the theater cool? If not, is there a good way (and enough space) to take off the top of this air handler and re-plumb all the ducts to make room for dampers to allow me to use the full capacity (or some reasonable percentage) of the unit to cool the theater? (Okay, that's more than 1 question.)

Too little power? Do you know what charge you were using?

...hmmm... thanks for the info.

Alright. Thanks for diving in; let's see where this takes us. Here are some images for reference. First, a partial photo of the model information on the side of the unit; notice the model number.


At amana-hac.com we find product information for this series of air handler. (link to pdf) from which we take a few images. First, the way to decode the model number:

(notice the model number indicates 3-speed fan)

And next, the specs - particularly the cooling and airflow ratings, highlighted for my unit, in red:


It looks like my air handler is rated for 2 1/2 ton capacity. (30,000/12,000=2.5). It should deliver between 1000 and 1300 CFM depending on the "external static pressure." You can see the nominal rating of 1240 at high fan in that chart, but notice the asterisk. A chart a couple pages later gives the range (more or less). This is pretty well in line with your rule of thumb (400cfm/ton).

So far so good...

I haven't gone outside to inspect the compressor and fan, but I think they should be complementary: the HVAC guys came out before we closed on the house and had a good look at the whole system - I'm pretty sure they would have said something if it was out of line, but I'll go do some more research there anyway.

I'm similarly going to stipulate the the whole system will cool the basement. The previous owners made a fair number of upgrades to the house, and they all seem to have been pretty well engineered. Add that to the common experience that HVAC designers tend to overestimate the required tonnage, and I feel pretty comfortable, even with the extra heat load of the theater. Previously, there were three windows (two large southern openings, and one small northern), and I've eliminated one of the large southern windows. Also, the only heaters inside my finished theater will be people and projector - no amps or players (well, maybe sub amps).

And we come to my concern: the 6" duct. Wasn't this the exact problem that BIG and Morph1c just finished dealing with in the Black Cat Theater? The 6" duct, that should be good for "most home theaters" meant the inline fan was required to get enough air exchanges, and as a result the air velocity resulted in significant vent noise.

Actually, Morph1c's theater is not much different from mine in size (his is about 10-15% wider, but 10% shorter and not quite as tall - very similar volume). So, I guess that tells me that the flow without inline fans will be lacking. He's ended up with larger ducts and large registers and boots, which was a problem for him because he had already finished drywall, but that's not my scenario. I wonder if his solution is the best solution. Maybe I need to PM him for input...

You're suggesting dead vents, which I assume would need inline fans. Do you think that's a better solution than dampers or just using fans in the normal lines?

And a returning side-bar: My BIL has one of those Ramset tools, like the one I linked to from Home Depot, so I'll definitely be giving that a shot.