I currently have a framed room for my home theater. The rest of the basement is also being finished at the same time. I've got the plumbing mostly roughed in and all of the electrical done outside of the theater room.


I'm hoping to make some good progress on it this weekend as my father in law is coming down to help with some work.


I'm planning on putting the screen on the left wall in the picture and covering the windows with some kind of framing. I would have removed the windows, but when we built the house I wasn't 100% I'd be doing a theater room and my builder wouldn't give me a very good credit on removing the windows. I seem to think it was about $300 in savings to remove the windows. This is way off since the windows are nice egress windows and below ground so there is a large brick window well that he had to have built. Anyway, I guess I'm just going to frame over them now.

 

The first problem I've run into is the main HVAC line for the 1st floor of my two story house runs all along the bottom wall in the plans. I will have to build a soffit around this, which isn't too big of a problem, but it does get pretty wide about halfway down the room. I think it is around 30-32 inches wide. I think I'm ok because the ceiling is close to 9 feet high.


I'm planning to work on the soffit this weekend, does anyone know if I need to enclose the ductwork with some kind of material? I will be double drywalling and green glueing the drywall on the soffit.

 

Glad you are finally getting started. That is a really niced sized room you have there. Remember to take lots of photos.

Did you get the file I emailed you?

 



Quote:
Originally Posted by Cathan /forum/post/13595636


Glad you are finally getting started. That is a really niced sized room you have there. Remember to take lots of photos.

Did you get the file I emailed you?

Cathan,


Yes I got it, too bad my visio skills are lacking

But it has been helpful to visualize some things.

 

Sweet, another Iowa build. Be sure to get lots of pictures up when you get a chance.


Good luck, and don't sweat how fast you get it done, be more concerned about getting it done right.

 

Guam- the main trunk of my HVAC system runs right down the middle of our theater. I just insulated it when I insulated our ceiling and I have never heard a sound from it. Just take your time and take plenty of pictures for us.

 



Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskey alpha /forum/post/13596164


Guam- the main trunk of my HVAC system runs right down the middle of our theater. I just insulated it when I insulated our ceiling and I have never heard a sound from it. Just take your time and take plenty of pictures for us.

Did you just stuff standard insulation around it, or some other product?

 

Here's some shots of the basement as it is now.


Windows/back wall

HVAC and wire mess

Space under the stairs where the equipment rack will be

 

I love the duct tape holding up that steel drain pipe. Or is it holding up the wall frame? Don't cut that tape without getting a structural engineer's OK and a permit. You never know what might collapse

.

 

Thanks. I figure who needs nails and screws, when you can just duct tape the whole thing together. Actually it is holding a big bunch of wires for my whole home audio system into slightly less of a mess than it would be without the duct tape.

 

Guam, I just used R38 packed in around it. It was a metal trunk but flexible runs of pipe to the vents. Pics look nice, what are you going to do around the windows jams, drywall or casing? I wanted to drywall mine, but our contractor indicated that he would do it, but it looks tacky. I have extra deep jams on windows and Anderson does not make a jam like that, so he custom built them for me. I am glad we did not drywall them. Got some shots of the future screen wall? reminder us again of your measurements. It's too bad they did not use the floor trusses instead of the i-beams. With the trusses they can enclose all the hvac stuff inside the truss system.

 

Here is a pic of my ceiling. We used an R13 in the cavities of the trusses and R38 between the trusses. I had absolutely nothing below the trusses

 



Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskey alpha /forum/post/13599342


What are you going to do around the windows jams, drywall or casing? I wanted to drywall mine, but our contractor indicated that he would do it, but it looks tacky. I have extra deep jams on windows and Anderson does not make a jam like that, so he custom built them for me. I am glad we did not drywall them. Got some shots of the future screen wall? reminder us again of your measurements.

I'm actually planning on framing and drywalling over the windows if I can get that to pass code. If I don't do that I will put some kind of oak casing on them.


One thing to note is that trunk line doesn't feed the theater at all, just the 1st floor. I'm hoping that helps with the isolation.


The room is approx. 16x20x9. No solid plans for the screen wall yet. Even if I had a solid plan, I doubt I would be able to give you a good idea of what it would look like as my visio/sketchup skills are sorely lacking.

 

I would not frame them in. It's nice to get some natural light in the theater once and a while. i have one window in my theater and I keep the curtain open to get let some light in. Think resale also, as I 'm sure the new owners probably won't have a theater

 

If you're careful with how you do it, you can build a plug that will slide into the window recess and blend into the wall. It can be easily removed later for resale if desired without major destruction and it's much better at light and sound isolation than a curtain.


Bryan

 

I'm going to try to write down my weekend plans so that hopefully I get them all accomplished. The major work is tackling some framing to help with isolation. Right now I've got four framed walls, two of which of horizontally decoupled from the rest of the house (the two on the outside foundation walls). The other two I need to do something with. For the left wall, I'm going to build a staggered stud wall so as not to lose more than 1" of my 20' dimension. Also that wall doesn't have any mechanical to work around. On the bottom wall, I'm going to build a double stud wall with soffit. The soffit will be attached to the ceiling joists with DC04 clips. This will be my only truly decoupled wall, but all of the others will be laterally decoupled which I'm hoping will minimize sound transfer to the rest of the house.


Hopefully my DC04 clips show up today. bpape was kind enough to run them over to fedex on Wed since I couldn't find any locally. I forgot to mention earlier, but based on the advice of many forum members, I'm hiring bpape to do the design of the theater.


In addition to the framing work, I've got a bunch of other miscellaneous things that need to get worked on in the rest of the basement. It is frustrating when you have most of the big things done, but all the little things hold you up from being ready to drywall.


My father in law is coming up to help me work this weekend, so hopefully we'll accomplish everything on my list.

 

Guam, I just noticed something. Is your room 20' square?

 



Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskey alpha /forum/post/13614337


Guam, I just notice something. Is your room 20' square?

Nope, the dimensions for the width don't show up on that pdf, but it is 20x16.

 

Have you ever thought of removing some of the walls and expanding the space? It looks the next room over would some length for you. Bigger screen-more seats!!

 

I've thought about it. I was looking at add 2.5 feet to serve as my space between my screen for my speakers so I could get a bigger screen, but I decided against it because we are using that space for our treadmill. Also we made the back 4 feet of that open space into a large storage closet, so that room isn't quite as big as it looks. Besides I only have 3 total in my family so I don't need more than 2 rows of seats.

 

I got my DC04 clips via FedEx today. Many thanks to bpape for shipping them so quickly so I could work on them this weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out how to get them installed to hang my soffit from them.

 

Unfortunately I've had a major setback in my theater planning. The climate at work just isn't conducive to me spending tons of extra money on a home theater. My wife and I have decided to spend a lot less time and money on the theater, so I've had to scale back my plans quite a bit. I'm still planning on doing a room with a projector, screen and surround sound, but no soundproofing acoustical treatments, or stage anymore. We just came to the realization that we weren't confident we'd be in this house long enough to get the value out of a high end theater and we'd really like to be able to enjoy our basement sooner rather than later.


Also last weekend I did manage to get the HVAC soffit built, but promptly thereafter got really sick and was barely able to move for a couple of days. On the plus side I'm done with another MBA class and have 1 really nice soffit in my basement.

 

It's rarely stated in here (and it's likely heresy) but clearly the HT work takes back seat to life, kids, job, etc.


I wouldn't think of it as that much of a setback, however. Instead of giving up on what you wanted, rearrange the plan so that some of it takes longer, and goes in later (and a bit at a time)


A stage is easy to add later if you want one. When you get the carpet done, see if you can get them to leave enough extra to cover the stage you eventually put in.


Same with acoustic treatments. Hanging attractive acoustic treatment panels on the walls can go a long way, and can be done later. Same with bass traps in the corners.


All of that is secondary, anyway. Got screen? check. Got projector? check. Got AVR/dvd/speakers? check. Good to go.


Good luck at work.


Paul

 

Don't let it get you too down. Paul is right that a little can go a long way. Finish your framing, spend a few $'s prepping the room for drywall in case you are able to come back to a more robust project, slap up your paint, carpet and enjoy a movie.


Things like DD/GG can be done later. Just do the one thing and decouple the walls and ceiling for the first layer.

 

Well, I've made some progress in both the planning and execution of the theater and basement in general. We managed to get the tub installed this weekend. And in the home theater, we got most of the electrical wiring done. I still need to build a matching soffit on the window wall and wire up some can lights in that and the electrical will be done for the whole basement. I'll try to get some more pics posted with the wiring/lighting work we got done this weekend.


I think I've decided on a 2.35:1 screen with a width around 11'. That should give me a height on the screen of just under 5' which I think with my ~12.5' front row viewing distance should work out ok.