Black Cat Theater (Now going BIG!) - Page 4

Very nice, I like it what you have done.

If you need to go alternative, my vote is then to go dark, so #3.

I would think a product like dricore (or a roll of platon with sheets of ply tapconned down) would be sufficient to eliminate the moisture issue. It would also give you a warmer feeling floor.

I'm just sayin'. I'm maybe 6 or 7 miles from you. MY basement was dry, too.....

Flood 1

And not to put TOO fine a point on it.....
Flood 2

And just thought I'd add this one, too.

After all is said and done, carpet on top would have been 3xs the carpet on the bottom.

Old and new carpet choices.

It's always something isn't it!

I agree that dricore would take care of it. Regardless of carpet choice if you do get water that goes above the dricore you will need to pull it up. I too got water and was able to salvage my carpet in the HT but it was not an easy task. The dricore and the padding did need to be replaced.

I never had the carpet take on or give any bad moisture odor before or after the flood and my water table tends to be relatively high during the winter/spring time.

If you go dricore you can save some money by also building the riser directly on the concrete and simply dricore the section in between. That's what I did and it really worked out in my favor. I did use pressure treated lumber as the base for the riser and stage, as it appears you also did for your stage.

Since you are planning to finish your entire basement, are you planning to put in a dehumidifier? Even with a dry basement, summer humidity + cool basement will produce issues. Assuming you used standard building materials for what you have done already (re: drywall and insulation), you may have to invest in a dehumidifier anyway.

Sump pump failures.

Root cause = rain

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I think it's going to depend on how your basement is built. If you don't have a sump, then you won't be susceptible to the same sort of problem. However, in a basement moisture will always be a concern.

It came up from the sump pump well I believe. His basement entrance is the same as yours with a below grade stairwell that acts like a rain collector. At his place that drain at the bottom of the stairs connects inside the house to the sump well.

It looks like you have a sump so if it's tops pumping, it will eventually overflow.

The water in the sump comes from the water in the ground outside your basement walls. To keep the water from seeping through the walls, most basement walls have a waterproofing membrane applied with drains at the bottom of the walls. The water looks for the path of least resistance which is the drain. These drains are then piped to the sump which pumps it away from your house.

Are there alternatives to sump pumps? I'm not sure if my house will have one.

If your lot has enough slope, you just run the perimeter drains out to daylight and let gravity do what it does best. If you have a flat lot, or your basement is the lowest point, you pretty well have to put in a sump pump.

The Green Glue hasn't cured yet. Give it thirty days.

Following this scientific make/measure/remake approach the columns can only be temporarily set in place as well.

Or we could install columns and molding make all the panels friction fit (removable) and just set in place for testing, if they fail pull off the wall and re-stuff. After you are pleased we would need to attach the panels to the wall.

Or pay someone for an acoustical treatment plan and build it once.

Some pictures from the weekend

Furring on the wall and Linacoustic



After trying the see through test we decided that the furring should be painted a dark color so that the contrasting light wood and black Linacoustic wouldn't show through the fabric.



With the real fabric, carpet sample, swatch of the proposed soffit paint, scrap of birch plywood (it will be stained cherry)

But this is would mean giving up some control....

Bpape or Dennis Erskine would have the expertise to plan it correctly and eliminate the science project phase thus saving time and energy.

Sorry, just getting back to this thread (I had a busy week in my theater, but I'll update with pics tonight).

The house was built around 1990. I'm behind the Kohls across form the NoVa campus off Rte 7. As near as I can tell the water came up through the pit and then flooded over the threshold of the sliding door from the outside because it wasn't draining into the pit any longer..

The first time, pretty simply, the sump pump failed. And there was a LOT of rain REALLY fast. I was out of the basement for 90 minutes and it went from bone dry to ankle deep. So I put in a back up.

The second time, I think what happened is that the float of the primary pump got caught up in the additional wiring of the back up and never turned on. It worked fine when I reached down in there and lifted the float up into position. Then I think that because again there was SO much water so fast that the backup was running continuously and the battery died. The problem there I think is that I think need a new battery already because THIS time the flood happened over about 25-30 minutes from the time my son left the house and actually checked it and the time my wife got home and found it. The water wasn't as deep as we got there sooner.

THIS year I'm thinking of two things. A temp cover over the steps from about the last week or so of August (BOTH floods were the first week of Sept) and setting a new sump pump at the bottom of the steps with one of the floats that slide up and down (as opposed to the floating bulb type) set to come on with as little water down there as possible.

I think the only permanent solution I've come up with is to see if I can find someone that can horizontally drill a hole and install another drainline from the bottom of the stairs out to the storm drain just outside my property line. Without having to take out a 2nd mortgage, that is.

I like the colors!

You see the trouble you can get in when you take a break?

Any updates?

You guys started talking about floods and sump pump failures and it scared me witless! Sump pump failures make me shudder, cuss, and extremely paranoid. Actually ANY water issues in the house make me paranoid.

Really liking the colors. On the reflection issue I would not guess it would be that big of a problem, but I know NOTHING about acoustics so don't listen to me.

Regards,

RTROSE