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Addition. Theater Room, Sound Insulation


akdave

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We are putting a new addition on the house and I will be getting a semi dedicated theater room! It will still have weights/treadmill/elliptical in the back. The dimensions are roughly 23' x 24' minus a small furnace room and wall materials.

For sound insulation we were going to have two layers of drywall with green glue, but due to time, money and weight consideration we have changed course. The ceiling will be suspended on a track and the walls will have staggered studs. We are going to have insulation in the ceiling & walls as well as a layer of soundboard. It will be a forced air furnace and hope to have a dedicated line for this room.

Anyone with soundproofing experience, I appreciate your input. I know there is a sacrifice by not going the green glue route, but I have been told that decoupling the room is probably the most signifcant first step in noise reduction.

I am going to try to post a few pics taken from my iPhone using the panoramic feature. I promise the boards are straighter than that. :-) The bracing is also temporary until some materials are moved from the floor above.

post-54903-1381985991223_thumb.jpg

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The white wall is quadlock foam filled with concrete and has earth on the other side. Noise for the neighbors will not be a big issue. I realize none of these comments line up with the pics :-S The door to the existing house is under the vapor barrier.

post-54903-13819859926378_thumb.jpg

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Nice project Dave! Just noticed this thread and looks like there's not much love down here. I'm not versed in sound proofing but the current AVS HT of the month is an interesting thread with some good tips in that regard...

Enjoy!

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1489162/home-theater-of-the-month-vikgraos-fortress-of-solitude

His build thread

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1437336/fall-frenzy-curve-frenzy-man-of-steel-theater-you-pick-bigmouthindc-hits-the-road-again-destination-columbus-indiana

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Tasdom, Thank you for the reply - that's a great build!

They didn't spare a thing - the sand in the stage is a great idea - I doubt I will have that... for now... I may be able to approach the topic later but with a new kitchen & master bed/bath being added, I need to be patient and bide my time!

I may post a link in the HT section - I felt it belonged here, but the crickets are the only noise so far! [:)]

I am grateful for your input.

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  • 3 months later...

Looks like a fun project! What are you doing with the door that will connect the room to the rest of the home? This would seem to be your biggest concern for sound transmission. I remember doing a commercial project a long time ago that we used a steel door and drilled it out and filled it with sand and it did wonders for stopping the sound, but not practical for your house.

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In the middle of building my theater, I used DD "Soundbreak" on all walls, ceiling even though all walks have 15" concrete) with 3 tubes of green glue per sheet. If on budget go with regular DD 5/8" with green glue and apply 1.5-2 tubes of green glue per sheet.

For door go with double solid core, thresholds and automatic door bottom on theater side. Seal door jams with psd seals.

While post pics of my build soon...fun stuff! Enjoy it man!

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  • 3 months later...

So looking at the calendar, I haven't checked this thread in a while either. First of all - thank you for the responses. We have been moving on the addition to our house, but the theater room is mearly weathered in (insulation + vapor barrier) to date.

Here's an update where I stand at the moment:

I'm told there is some concern with the weight load of putting double drywall the entire span of the ceiling. A few options have been explored and the best consensus is this. We will be putting insulation in the ceiling (between the floor joists above) and running a track to decouple the ceiling. We will put soundboard in as well and I had someone with experience doing this in Seattle stop by and he recommended adding a layer of foam board insulation (R Max style) if weight was a consideration. I read through your link Tasdom (THANK YOU - That's a good site!) and I'm not sure how effective the various light weight mediums will be especially on knocking down the lower end sound. I will say we used the R Max in our new master bedroom upstairs and it knocks the wind noise down substantially! (we get 30-50mph winds 4-5 x's/winter) I realize there is a significant difference between wind noise and 100dB of home theater explosions... Additionally I am now debating the order of the layering of these materials - I was thinking dryall-foam board-track-sound board-floor joist; but it may be better to not have the smaller air gap according to that link and it might be better to run the two boards flush with the drywall, then the track and joists. (thoughts - suggestions please!)

As for the door - here comes a decent expense: I am probably going to have a custom door(s) made that will be solid core wood on the theater side and probably exterior grade french doors on the house side due to the WAF. We will be running furring channels along the existing house side wall and stuffing that with insulation as well. (it's an insulated exterior wall as is). I have in mind to still push for the dual solid core door, but I imagine we're close to a year from this taking off so I need to space my battles.

I truly appreciate your feedback and any more that you have I look forward to!

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  • 1 month later...

Baby Steps:

Today cleared the room out (I had moved everything in there for the winter). I put insulation up between the floor joists. The track will run perpendicular to the joists. The sound board and sheet rock are next. Although the rock and track may be a few weeks out it was nice to finally take a step toward completion.

It may be late summer before this room is completely buttoned up because we don't have a solid timeline on the double solid core door. This is a very interesting process for me. I have read a great deal on line on soundproofing, but I'm amazed at how many framers, insulators & drywallers up here find this to be a relatively foreign concept (with the exception of some separation for multifamily dwellings)!

The pics show a sort of before and "during". The duct pic is flex duct we had put in which is allegedly designed to reduce the echo chamber effect & reduce sound transmission. Behind the beam (left side of the room facing the tv) there are solid metal ducts which we had lined with sound deadening material as well (by the heating co). The blue tape on the wall is a rough out of some screen sizes (130" - 150" 16x9) I'm toying with. The far right and left "dashes" are for a 2.35:1.

This is relatively trial & error. Hopefully when someone else looks to do this they will be able to learn something from my experience. I have No One up here (Alaska) that has any experience trying to knock down serious sound. So far the HT's that I've seen up here they've gone for in wall or gear that ties in with the room - most on this forum can relate with trying to manage serious sound leak. (Especially you PRO guys!!)

Anyway - sorry they're not Youthman quality but it's nice to be able to share!

PS - Ok - so I'm having issues posting pics but am worried I will lose this text so I am posting and will HOPEFULLY ad pics when I figure this out! :blink:

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