A Soundproofing Dilemma

Just bought a house. Building a home theater in the basement. I want to soundproof this as properly as I can: clips, two layers of drywall, Green Glue, etc.

I have a few obstacles, but this one is particularly frustrating. The basement has low a ceiling, and has a support beam just after the entrance that I already have to duck under to get into the room.



Currently, the beam is at about my forehead level. It's a nuisance to duck under it, but I can live with it. However, if I have to put full soundproofing around this beam, that will drop the height another couple of inches, and will bring it to the level of my nose. That is unacceptably low.

Moving the beam is not an option. Too complex, too expensive.

I'm willing to sacrifice some soundproofing performance to maintain the current height, or close to it. How important is it to soundproof this beam? It's obviously very heavy, but it's also directly connected to the framing of the house. I don't imagine that many sounds would get through it, but vibrations could be problematic. If I watch a loud, bassy action movie, how annoyed is my wife going to be upstairs?

One contractor recommended that I put the sheetrock, glue, etc only on the sides of the beam. He wants to line the bottom with a material called IsoWalk, that he says will help absord some of the vibrations, at least enough that I can get away with it. I can't find much information about this material. Is it snake oil?

Am I overthinking this? Is it really not as big a concern as I've made it out to be?

What other options do I have that will spare me from having to lower the height of this beam any further than it already is?

Thanks in advance.
Edited by Josh Z - 12/30/12 at 7:29pm

Yes, I could deal with that, but not much further. What do you recommend, Ted? Thanks.

This is an old house, and was apparently built at a time when people were shorter.

Yes, it's a wood beam. I have investigated moving or replacing it, but those are both way out of my budget. I considered moving the entrance to another side of the room, but the only option that might work for that is a wall with a lot of plumbing pipes on the other side. Moving those is another expense I can't afford right now. That wall is where I want to put my projection screen anyway.

Also, moving the door would require that I walk all the way around the basement to enter through the boiler room at the back, which is almost as big a nuisance as just ducking under the stupid beam.

The beam is something that I have to learn to live with. But lowering the height any more than another 1/2" would be really problematic.

I have been working with John at The Soundproofing Company, but as I'd been waiting for him to get back from the holidays, I figured that I'd query here for some ideas in the meantime.

Putting a door under that beam would require that I build a wall there, which I don't want to do because it will cut off too much of my square footage.

You can find a sketch of my room layout and some additional pictures here:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/hometheater-renovation-1/

Thanks!
Edited by Josh Z - 1/2/13 at 1:28pm

I've already stripped the room. You can see the raw beam at the right of the photo I attached to the first post. It goes all the way from one end of the room to the other. I gain a smidge by pulling the paneling off the beam, but it's still only 6 feet off the floor and I still have to duck. I basically don't want anything new I do to go any lower than the original paneling.

Unfortunately, only about 1/2 an inch. The drop ceiling was attached to strapping right against the joists. As I said, the house was built for short people.

I'm told that John Huston spent a fair amount of time drinking bourbon in this basement with the previous owner. According to IMDb, he was my height, 6'2". I wonder if this stupid beam annoyed him as much as it annoys me.

I'm only putting in one row of seating.

Yes, I'm pretty sure the floor tiles are asbestos. I hadn't planned to touch them (just cover them with carpeting), but we've found a leaky pipe that may change those plans. Ugh, home ownership...

It's one piece. What you're seeing on the right are the framing boards in front of the beam, and on the left is the paneling that I hadn't yet pulled off the beam when I took the photo.

There's about a four-foot gap between the beam and the wall behind it. Also, that's not a foundation wall. The laundry room is on the other side.

These are interesting ideas. I will ask my contractor, but I don't hold out a lot of hope.

I don't have that handy at the moment.

In the drawing above, the stairs come down near the entrance to the room. There's a laundry area to the right, and the boiler room at the back (behind where I want to put the projection screen).

As I've been learning, anything I need a plumber for is automatically a thousand dollars more than I think it should cost.

I stripped the room myself, but the build-out will be done by a professional contractor. We meet on Friday to finalize my plans.

Building a wall under the beam is something that I've considered, but I'd really prefer not to lose the space on the right. For one thing, putting the equipment rack where I'd like it allows me easy access to get around the back and rewire/swap out equipment without having to pull the whole rack out. That's something I've been eager to do for a long time.

Also, my original sketch isn't entirely accurate. The beam and columns are pretty much in direct line with the 8' wall, so I'd be losing another foot on that side of the room.

Not if that's going to be my soundproofed wall.