basementdweller1's "subbin' it out" basement theater & more build

I'd like to add a build thread of my own and ask for your help in many of the decisions ahead!

My wife and I, and our two young children have lived in our new construction home for 5 years and the 1780 sq ft basement is ready to be finished. I greatly lack any experience in construction, wiring, etc. and while I have toyed for years with the idea of tackling this myself I finally have thought better of it, so welcome to my "subbin' it out" build. The fun has already started but framing starts (and likely completes!) the first week in January 2012 so this is really happening to our great excitement. The goal is to end up with 1320 sq ft of livable space including a large living room, full bath with tub/shower, an oversized fitness / multipurpose room, and a big open area complete with projection home theatre and wet bar. All this and a couple of unfinished storage areas.

I am acting as the GC on this project and have been planning the last 4-6 months and have spent the last two months having repairs and improvements made in preparation for the build.

Step 1 was waterproofing. The basement has been remarkably dry for the 5 years it has existed but did have numerous settling cracks in the poured concrete walls, all of which formed in the first year. A couple got wet in the worst rains and those were injected and fixed with either epoxy or high pressure foam by pros. I had the few cracks that NEVER got wet injected in the same way about 2 months ago as insurance. the basement has stayed totally dry in heavy rains since.

Step 2 was checking for radon and finding our levels were a 5.2 which is above the goverment recommended max of 4.0 and their suggested 2.0 so I had a active radon mitigation system installed which uses a 4 inch PVC pipe through the foundation to actively suck the air below the foundation with an outdoor fan and release it above our roof line. The results have been great with radon levels below 0.5 which is average outdoor levels.

Step 3 was replacing 130+ ft of poorly installed PVC pipes to our two high efficiency furnaces. The builders HVAC guys misglued nearly every joint and they all dripped condensation water when the furnaces ran. During the warranty year the builder attempted to fix whichever joint was leaking that day by cutting it out or rubbing more glue on it but fixing one just made the next joint leak. Finally the warranty was up, the HVAC installer was out of business and the whole thing looked more like an erector set that would have tons of soffits so I had a new company come in and replace the whole thing and run the lines in a far more thoughtful and efficient manner to help avoid unneccessary soffits and lowered ceilings. I have a 9 ft basement and want ceiling height wherever I can get it and I plan all drywall ceilings so I can't afford not to trust what is above the walls.

Step 4 was getting a building permit. I have to be honest a bunch of friends had great basements without pulling a permit but I am not an expert on building and I want to sleep at night that what has been done is safe so I am following the law. It's going to cost more and I fully expect this to run into more snags because of pulling a permit but for me it was the only good choice. I have had it approved and have had the preconstruction meeting and am cleared for construction.

The final step prior to framing is happening two days after Christmas. I am getting my builders mockery of an attempt at putting fiberglass insulation in my rim joists (misfitted to a comical degree) replaced with 3 inches of closed cell spray foam. It is a great choice I hope to prevent all chance of air infiltration (my fiberglass is dirty from dust getting in through tiny gaps in the rim joist plus pipe penetrations, not to mention the spiders) plus prevent condensation forming on the cold sill from warm basement air... Not to mention R20+ insulation values.

Here is the floor plan ...



The theater will go in the "family room" marked area with the wall separating the room from the long storage area being the screen area. The theater space will be 15 x 20 but open on side to the large bar area.

In my next long winded post (coming in the next few minutes) I'll post the first pictures of what will be the theatre area along with a couple of important questions I hope you can answer before I start framing.

Here is from the last row of seating looking towards the screen wall area, destined to be 5 1/2 ft off the rear concrete wall.



Here is the same rear seating row looking to towards the bar area.



Here is a view from the screen wall location towards the seating area.



And finally here is a view of the HVAC system, 2 furnaces and a gas WH. The utility room wall will be 3 ft in front of this.

To just a bit further flesh out my ideas for the theatre space, It is 20 ft. deep from screen to rear wall but obviously very, very open to the bar area. Essentially it is one huge room with 2/3rds devoted to the theatre area and 1/3 to the bar with the divider being the single column. I totally acknowledge the huge downsides to the sound because of this open situation and that the area I have listed as a fitness room would make a better dedicated theatre space, but for my wife and kids having a big open area we all share is the way to go.

That said I don't really want it to feel like a family room so I intend a stage in front of the screen, and a riser for 2 rows of seating. I likely will go with one row of theatre seating and one row of couch seating. While it looks like I have a great setup for a false wall the reality is I need that storage space in back of the screen wall so I anticipate a fixed screen with either in wall, on wall, or floor standing towers I haven't yet decided. The rear speakers area a sticky issue. I think I will likely have a 5.1 system vs. 7.1 and the rear speakers will either need to be in ceiling which is a big concern I would like opinions on, or on a ceiling extension tube to at least point them forward. A Onkyo TX-NR809 will power an Epson 5100 projector most likely for the setup, I haven't decided yet on much regarding a screen. I likely can get away with having a dark grey or very dark brown wall and non-white but also not black ceiling so it is about compromise for this shared space. A Grafik Eye system will power the scene based lighting and a Harmony 1100 with RF will run the av rack.

To give you all a timeline on how fast I hope this all goes, I hope from framing to completion of the entire basement is 4-6 months. Should be fun and quick.

all right... my first big question and problem. where should the av cabinet go? i want a built in wall av cabinet and already have a set of rails and two blanks to help frame it but the actual placement is a more difficult question. IMHO the best ascetically pleasing location would be directly behind the main seating area (likely 2 rows) which is the wall of the utility room, the wall directly to the left of the HVAC area in my floorplan. The location is great in the sense that the equipment would easily be accessed from behind in the utility room, heat wouldn't be an issue, and the central basement location would make wire runs to everything short, including flat panels in the living room and fitness room besides the main theatre. The problem is all sound.

The two furnaces have very, very loud blowers. I intend to insulate the utility room with 5/8 drywall, roxul insulation, and a solid core door but I am afraid cutting a big hole in the wall for the av cabinet wastes every bit of that effort, in particular because where I would want it is right behind the seating area for the theatre. Option number 2 would be to put the av cabinet in either the wall facing the hallway or the wall facing the living room which still would spread sound I assume but be farther from the seating area. Finally I could put it in what I have listed as the closet near the bathroom, it fixes the sound issue but now is not nearly as centrally located and more and more removes the av cabinet from view, something frankly I want to be a show piece.

Any thoughts on how bad I will leak sound from an otherwise deadened wall that has an av rack? Will having fillers, blanks, and custom cut surrounds in the av cabinet help at all?

Thanks...

one more thought on the av rack position...

one spot where it would look good and have no noise issue is on the actual screen wall, but way down by the bar area. you wouldn't see it in your field of view but it would look great there and that penetrates the storage area, not the utility area. my only concern would be length of wire runs. i am hoping to use the cable box DVR and bluray player in the av cabinet to feed HDMI video to not only a projector but a flat panel in the area marked LIVING ROOM and way over in the FITNESS room, a run of likely 60 feet or more. for those 2 flat panels i intend a second hdmi cable that runs to a floor jack in each room so i can hookup misc. items in the future at the TV locations if i want, ie. a camera with HDMI cable, an apple tv, whatever. would that be too far a run? is that a flawed idea?

here is a quick and dirty layout of seating/screen and new idea for location of in wall av rack (although this is going to make for some long runs...) thoughts?

Yep, subbing most of it. I plan on running all the low voltage stuff, HDMI, coax, Cat6, speaker wire, etc. with empty smurf tubes along side for future proofing. I plan on building the stage in front of the screen and doing some insulating work myself. Other than that I'm letting the folks who really know what they are doing, do the work.

The sump noise isn't an issue, my basement is very dry and frankly I have never ever seen the sump kick on in 5 years in even the worst rains. Despite this I do have a main and backup pump and check them. As for a enclosed closet in the utility area, I considered that but am worried about clearances, my plans call for a wall about 3 ft in front of and between 2 to 2 1/2 feet on the other sides. That is enough to maneuver around a wall kiddy corner av rack (where marked with arrow in my first floor plan, not the hand drawn one) but if I enclose it there may not be a lot of space to work with the HVAC system. That would be ideal though, to have it in the central space. I have to look up what you are all doing to access the back of enclosed racks and how fans work and are setup, I don't know much about either. I have just over a week until I would like to tell the framers where it is going to go.

Also the audio issue... it will either be 5.1 or 7.1 but the I haven't settled on much yet with it. To maximize the space I doubt I will do a false wall with transparent screen as although the space looks idea for it, I need the entire width of that storage area behind the screen. If I further bump out the screen area I make it harder to have 2 rows of seating which I want. So the L/C/R will either be floor standing in front of the screen on the stage, or will be in/on wall. I have little experience except with a simple 5.1 system based around Paradigm Cinema series speakers on wall, so I am not yet sure what I am going to go with. As for the sides and rear I think the room dimensions lend themselves to IN CEILING (ugh... how bad will that be for surround?) or perhaps better but not ideal either is an extension pole from ceiling to mount conventional surrounds facing forward rather than down.

Merry christmas everyone!

theblackangel: i too host all my films on a server, including HD rips, but i assume i will be playing straight blurays quite a bit in my theater just because of the mostly uncompressed nature vs. other ways. that said i could still easily put the cabinet elsewhere in the hallway or the closet area i've marked but having seen a few in other theaters i think the av cabinet can be an impressive showcase of your work and i hate to hide it.

as for radon here is some information...

you can see your likelihood of a problem in the EPA's national maps: http://www.epa.gov/radon/zonemap.html

being in illinois i had a good likelihood of a problem but never bothered to test because in general the worst level is the basement and ours was unfinished. you can still have a problem even on other floors so I should have test anyway. that said when time came to finish the basement i realized i better test and used a kit from home depot with 2 short duration (2-3 day) tests. both came back over the EPA's suggested limit, one was a 4.8 the other a 5.2 and you and see what that means in terms of getting lung cancer here toward the bottom of this EPA page: http://www.epa.gov/radon/healthrisks.html

once i knew i had an issue no way could i ignore it. illinois would require me to disclose it if i ever sold the house and no way could i sleep knowing i could fix a risk to my 3 and 6 year old but was too cheap to do it. the average fix costs about $1300 +- $300 depending on your house setup, which frankly is the cost of a speaker or two in many of our systems. they basically drill down to the gravel under your foundation and stick a PVC pipe in that which then goes through your basement and outside your house where it connects to a fan housing then runs with a PVC or gutter pipe up to your highest roofline. the fan runs 24/7 and sucks air from under the entire foundation and gets rid of it above your roof line, the radon going with it. my levels went from 5.2 to 0.5 or less in under 12 hours when i tested again.

well worth it IMHO. check before you drywall when it gets harder and more expensive to fix.

tomorrow, i'll put up a nice post (hopefully someone will gain some use of it, but many might know all this) on my reading up on insulating rim joists, the options, the problems with my house, and how i fixed it complete with pictures.

You might have a full up radon system, but might not. Many, many builders are now putting in a "passive" radon system into homes that is essentially the PVC routing from below foundation to the roof minus the fan of an active system. They leave a place for a fan upgrade at owner cost later. The cost to install this system for builders is pennies during the pouring of the foundation and construction process and since many buyers now test radon prior to closing it saves builders in the long run if they need to just add a fan vs. drilling the slab etc. to complete the sale. If you don't have an active fan system the passive nature of just a pipe often doesn't fix radon levels beyond just the slightest over limit readings, the good news is you can test and if you find your over the limits you can just add yourself the fan for approx $150-200 or have a company do it for you at about $400 vs. the $1100-1600 a full system from scratch costs.

That was my fear with floor standing. I have to admit that by far my weakest area of understanding is speakers. I am pretty up on display technology, AV receiver tech etc. but other than "pick a budget and if the reviews are good on avsforum buy it" I don't know much about speakers. In wall speakers always look so small next to floor standing or even on wall speakers that I just kind of assumed they were a huge compromise. I would LOVE to have speakers in wall behind a AT screen but don't want to build a false wall... can I put in-walls in my screen wall and literally just mount the AT screen on the same wall? My only exposure to AT screens was with a false wall and floor standing speakers behind the AT and then the real wall, something I don't want for space constraints. I would love in-walls that sounded good with a AT screen layered right on it.

Sounds like your system is perhaps ideal for my setup and would love your input. We are a family who never listens to movies very loud but I would like to a bit more with a more dedicated theater. The best I can do for surround and overall sound is the goal but obviously within the huge constraints I have in poor room acoustics due to the setup of the space.

Well here is my rim joist insulation post. My home when built 5 years ago used Fiberglass in the Rim Joist for insulation. This area is well known to be responsible for over 30-40% of the entire heat loss of the wall and leaks also cause cold floors and wasted energy for the main level above. My builder did a sloppy job of the fiberglass install with ill fitting insulation, vapor barriers facing the wrong way in some cases, and lots of air infiltration areas. For example...



Even well installed fiberglass will never fit perfectly and air infiltration is inevitable. Hose and pipe penetrations often leak and the way the wood boards come together often leave gaps. Beyond this you have to take in account this is one area of your home where the only thing that separates you from the outside is a single wood board and they get cold. It grows worse when you finish your basement as the now warmer basement area gets up against the sill which is ice cold, often has metal bolts or nails in it and condenses creating mold. Mine wasn't in that bad shape but pretty much every hose and pipe penetration I had showed daylight (no wonder i had so many spiders) and many of the wood gaps i feared actually existed allowing in airflow. You can see easy evidence of this in the form of dirt marks on the fiberglass when I removed them, like this...





The black strip above is from a gap leakage between the horizontal rim and the sill plate, it was located in this area...



My choices to fix all this were A) pull the fiberglass, use great stuff foam to try to hit any visible gaps and reinstall better fitting fiberglass (doesn't work well even if you do it right) B) put in 2 inch XPS hard foam board, custom fitting around pipes and caulk in place covered by drywall with construction adhesive for a fire barrier (works well, high labor) or C) used closed cell spray foam under 3 1/4 inch in thickness per code to avoid needing a flame barrier (works the best of all, pros can do it in 2-3 hours but at the highest cost of all choices.)

I chose the spray foam as my fix and used a professional installer as kits I priced were fairly close in cost to just using the pros. The city approved it and they came today and within an hour areas of my upstairs wood floor, in particular the bay windows and bump outs went from icy cold to the same normal base temperature of the entire floor. I expect the overall R-value to be a 21 and air infiltration (and bugs etc.) to be essentially zero. Here are some pictures.





And that's it. Other than some last minute organization of stuff into the storage areas and covering them with plastic sheeting we are ready to frame. That should start in 1 week.

This has been a good week. On Monday morning the framers arrived. When they left on Tuesday the framing was 99.9% done. Wednesday some minor HVAC work, and today all the new supplies and returns were put in. 5 supplies in total, 2 returns in total. Let's have a look...

Living Room:



From Living Room, looking toward Theater and Bar area. Pantry on left, Utility Room wall on right:



Back of Theater Area looking toward bar (has not been framed yet, I'll details plans later). You can see the taped off proposed 127" screen and my new bathtub waiting to be moved into the bathroom for rough-in:



The back row:



From the screen looking toward the back of the theater area:



Hallway:



Hallway view of MA Slim-5 29U rack with Theater in the background:



View of the bathroom, you can see the toilet rough-in behind the small ladder and the dehumidifier is sitting in the 30x60 tub area. On the left will be a 30 or 36 inch vanity. To the right is the doorway (from inside the bath) to the media closet:



Media closet:



And finally the fitness room with the second storage room in the back:



Well that's it for now, I have a lot of details I want to talk about but I need to go to work to pay for this stuff. The current short-term plan is to have all the rough plumbing of the bathroom and the wet bar done in the next week or so and start getting quotes on the extensive electrical. A huge monoprice order is coming, I'll post the specs on that before I place it for any thoughts...

Also there were a few last minute changes to the floor plan I posted before, I'll post a new overhead layout in a few days...

Well the satisfaction of going from nothing to framed in 2 days is really great, yes, but don't underestimate the advantages of taking months or years to do this. Many decisions are coming so much faster now and I don't have a bunch of answers. Vague ideas like my stage and riser plan need to become final plans in a hurry if you have a bunch of subs that need you to tell them what goes where.

Tomorrow I'll post some of the questions I need to answer to move on with getting electrical bids and I'm at a bit of a standstill waiting on a 3rd plumbing estimate before I pick who and when the plumbing rough will be done.

Timeline- Plumbing done within 7-14 days of now, start getting bids next week and choose an electrician within 14 days. Make an order by Monday-Tuesday of key low voltage stuff (including hdmi, speaker, cat6, RCA, rg6, grafik eye controllers and speciality wire) and speciality outlets etc. from monoprice for the electrician to work with.