The Chiu Theater (professional construction) done in 60 days - Page 2  

To eskay: I didn't hire the drywall crew directly. The entire project is being managed by the general contractor (Houston Structural). Everyone that worked on this project has many years of experience so the quality is top-notch. Having said that, as you can imagine, the drywall crew has never seen or heard of Green Glue, but it was no problem for them. No problem with the staggered seams, 1/4" gaps with acoustic caulk, double layers, etc. Just a 2 minute talk before they started hanging was all it took.

I did not use the clips. Performance would be better with the clips but I like as high a ceiling as possible. Right now, the double-drywall with Green Glue is doing a lot but bass gets out easily and the door is clearly the weakest link. I will take care of the door with some Zero hardware later.

Some miscellaneous pictures that I found on my hard drive that you might find interesting/useful...

Picture #1 shows a corner of the room. Here you see the new layer of 3/4" tongue-and-groove plywood screwed 8" on-center. Notice the 1/4" gap so that it does not touch the wall framing which is then caulked with acoustic caulk. We used the ordinary USG Acoustic Caulk which is not expensive but works well. You can also see that I used a red sharpie to mark where the studs are. I thought this would come in handy later.

Picture #2 shows the 1/4" gap between the floor and the drywall. In my room, we have 1/4" gaps between the ceiling and walls, between adjacent walls, and between the walls and floor. Picture #3 shows the gap after being filled with acoustic caulk.

Picture #4 shows a wire penetration into the room. In this case, this was for a column-mounted convenience outlet. There isn't a single electrical box in the room. Picture #5 shows the hole after filling with acoustic caulk.

Week 8 is over.

Here is what we accomplished this week.

- Textured drywall ceiling in theater, and ceiling and walls in equipment room. Theater walls do not need drywall texture because it will be covered with GOM fabric.

- Framed riser and stage. The riser and stage are built with 30 pound roofing felt on the floor, then 2x8 wood which is 7.5" high. The studs are 12" on-center. We then stuff the cavities with fiberglass insulation batts. We used R22 insulation which is 7.5" thick.

- We framed them 1/2" away from the walls and we enforced this gap using Perimeter Isolation Board which is made from compressed fiberglass. The Perimeter Isolation Board is 1/2" thick x 3" wide and we used 3M Super77 spray ahesive to stick it on the wall.

- The curve on the riser and stage was made with 3/4" plywood which is easy to bend.

- The riser also has a conduit that goes from front to rear, and also sticks up in the middle for the 2nd row seating. This conduit will contain wiring for Buttkickers built into the seats. After the wire exits from the rear, it can then use one of the other conduits to the equipment room.

- The riser also has an electrical outlet on the front and a floor plug in the middle. These are for the seating's power recline feature.

- The riser also has two step lights which will be controlled by a Lutron Spacer System dimmer (zone #7) and you can see the wiring for this now.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lawren...bum?.dir=/6f98

I uploaded close-up pictures of the riser and stage. You can clearly see the perimeter isolation board in the first picture. I measured it again and it's actually 1/4" thick.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lawren..._tx3/my_photos

Week 9 is over.

In 3 days, we will hit the 60 days estimated for completion. We are currently running about 2 weeks behind.

Here is what we accomplished this week.

- Finished the riser and stage with another layer of 30 pound roofing felt, then two layers of 3/4" Tongue-and-groove plywood with Green Glue in between at 100% coverage. We used 7 pails of Green Glue total for the whole project. The top overhangs by 2-1/2" but I won't be using rope lighting. Instead, I have two step lights. The overhang is useful for the carpet installers since they can use the underside to staple the carpet for a clean finish.

- Cut 1/4" wide slots in the riser to make it act as a bass absorber. The slots are 26" long. It was hard finding a router bit which can go through 1-1/2" of plywood. Finally used a 1" one and cut each slot in two passes. The slots are centered between the studs so they are roughly 12" on-center.

- Built the MDF access panel to the water heaters. Two layers of 3/4" MDF with Green Glue in between. On a piano hinge and it swings up like a doggie door.

- Built the screen wall with 2x4 wood.

- Install door moldings and hardware.

- Painted the ceiling "Milano Blue" and the walls/door/screen-wall black. We used a sprayer for both with a brush at the transition. This made the job much faster. The black paint makes it almost impossible to photograph the room. It absorbs light like a black hole.

- Painted the equipment room.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lawren...bum?.dir=/76a3

In the Acoustical Treatments Master Thread, Dennis Erskine wrote that "Wall treatments are floor to slightly above ear level (where exactly is also a function of front speaker heights)."

However, on my DE design, he put the Insul-Shield Black below the chair rail which is about 3' high. This is below ear level. For the riser, he didn't specify raising it up so it is only 2' 3" from the floor. Just wondering why the difference and if I should bring it up higher.

Also for the riser portion should this be raised higher than the lower portion of the room?

Hi, I uploaded 4 more pictures to the last link above. Close-ups of the stage, screen wall, and riser.

Hi Marc, I didn't use any paint on the studs. Instead, I used a product called Integrity Gasket from Shadwell (integritygasket.com). This is a 1-1/2" wide tape that has a sticky side.

Thanks to you, I had no more problems with the trim on the can lights. You're welcome any time to come by and check things out.

I am still confused about acoustic treatment. I have read the master thread sticky but after 8 pages about half-way through it, my eyes started to glaze over and I got a headache. SBIR, tri-corners, bass trapping, LEDE, too confusing!!! What I would really appreciate is a simple answer for my room. I plan to use 1" Insulshield-Black on the entire front and side walls up to the front of the stage. Floor is 3/8" 8 lb. rebond pad + carpet. That part is not ambiguous. But, I do not know what to do about:
- side walls from stage to the riser
- side walls from riser to back of room. The riser is 9" high, do I raise the Insulshield 9"?
- rear wall
- "soffit" around the perimeter.
- ceiling

Week 10 is over.

The room didn't change a lot this week. We are waiting for carpet. I selected Shaw "PLAY TIME L0053" carpet, color "53500 BLACK BEAUTY" for the theater and a black carpet for the stage.

The electrician did come by this week and hooked up the step lights and the surge protectors. The step lights are from NSL (nslusa.com). The surge protectors are from Zero Surge (zerosurge.com). Same technology as Brickwall, and Surgex. Since they do not use MOV's, they'll last a long time.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lawren.../ph//my_photos

We passed the 60 day mark 4 days ago. How do I update the thread title? I think it makes sense to change it to 90 days.

To Dave: The builder is not dedicated to home theaters, but they are a well-regarded remodeling company in Houston. Everything is spelled out explicitly in the contract so there were no problems. It is important to hire good people. I found my builder at National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) website (nari.org).

To Marc: Thanks for the picture. I see that in the rear you raised the insulation. I'll do the same.

Sorry for not updating recently.
I've been traveling for the July 4th holiday and haven't had time for pictures.

If I was writing this last Friday 07/01/2005, I would have written:

===
Week 11 is over.

The carpet was installed today. We are using carpet in the theater only. The equipment closet will get a vinyl floor later. The guys did an excellent job wrapping the curve portions of the stage and riser.

Currently, the columns are being fabricated off-site at the builder's cabinet maker. He is using 1" MDF, which I didn't even know was available at that thickness. It's pretty neat how he is doing it. Basically, he is cutting each face of the column (3 faces) out of a sheet of MDF, so there is no flexing on the sides and the entire column is perfectly rigid. Then the entire thing is hung on a french cleat just like a cabinet so no wobbling after installation.

The columns will be installed next Friday, so I'll post pictures of both carpet and columns then.
===

"next Friday" above refers to tomorrow, so I'll upload the pictures tomorrow.

Week 12 is over. Here is what we accomplished this week.

====================
- Installed Screen Research screen. With MSRP of $5.5K, this screen was the second most expensive piece of equipment in the room (beaten only by the Denon 5805 at $6K). I also considered a Stewart Microperf Studiotek 130 at the same dimensions. The SR screen was about $200 more than the Stewart and it won because no moire and it does not change the sound. The Stewart does not guarantee no more and it requires an equalizer for the speakers behind the screen. However, I think I would have been happy with either one. At $200 difference, the SR was the right choice for me! Would have liked the higher gain of the Stewart though, the SR is only 0.95 gain.

- 2.35:1 fixed screen.
- ClearPix2 fabric
- White color
- with Black Backing
- Supreme frame
- 120" image width
- the overall dimensions are 126.3" x 57.4"
- model number is FS-120-235-2W-B

The downside is again the 0.95 gain and also installation was very time consuming and hard. The screen + black backing is basically assembling two screens. Instead of the Stewart snap-buttons which make things simple, the SR uses Pi-Grips which are these plastic clips. You first use short ones to pre-tension the screen and you have to put these on opposite sides in sequence. Then you have to pop these out and put in long ones. Since they fit so tight, I first used my thumbs to push them in, but after a while, my thumbs got very sore and I had to use the included mallet. Other than those two complaints, the screen really shows off a great picture and I am very happy with it.

I got a great price for the SR screen from Kei Clark. I could not have done it without her.

...More ( + pictures in the next post).

The columns were also installed.

With that, I moved all my equipment into the room. The equipment closet is not ready yet.

1) They consists of Klipsch THX Ultra2 setup:
KL650THX (left/center/right)
KS525THX (side-surround left/right)
KS525THX (rear-surround left/right) set A
KL650THX (rear-surround left/Right) set B
2 subs (I forget the model #) and their associated amplifier KA1000THX (1000 watts).

The front speakers are currently sitting on kitchen chairs. I ordered custom stands from Sound Anchors and they take 6 weeks to build.

The 2 sets of rear surrounds allow me to switch between a diffuse surround field (set A) or monopoles in the back (set B). The Denon 5805 supports this configuration since it has 10 amplifiers. All the speakers are temporarily wired with left-over 12 gauge Romex. Later to be wired with Belden 10 gauge speaker wire (5T00UP).

2) And the previously Denon 5805.

3) And a cheapo Toshiba DVD player from Best Buy. To be upgraded later.

4) my four Berkline 090 chairs into the room. Grade 4 all-leather, autorecline, with buttkickers built-in.

5) Sony VPL-HS51 projector currently sitting on a bar stool. There is a chief mount for it too but it is on a bar stool for now to play with the distance to mount it.

More in next post.

I got my Berkline chairs from Roman (rsh on avsforum). Great guy to deal with.

The builder also installed the Equi=Tech isolation transformers and switches/outlets in the closet which you can see from the pictures, wired up all the recessed lights (Ardee Varianti) in the room, grills for the A/C supplies/returns, thermostat (VERY IMPORTANT IN TEXAS SUMMER)

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lawren...bum?.dir=/af3c