John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

The rockwool is available

So the lumber, Fermacell and Rockwool should be delivered next monday.
I'm taking a couple weeks holiday and in this time see how far I get in the build.

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Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

Well the material was delivered on the following Tuesday, and I've spent the last two weeks building the walls.

Should I begin a new post in the Construction Forum, and provide Links between these two posts?

Before I detail the build though, I have a question regarding ventilation.

In the following diagram, the Red lines are the air exhaust and the Blue lines are the fresh air delivery. The Exchanger unit is located at the far left.


The room in question is the gold rooms "Keller 8" and "Hobbyroom 8" on the right. The Hobbyroom will be the studio.

Fresh air is piped into the Kellerroom and extracted from the Hobbyroom. The path between the room is under the door!

As it is my intention to add a second door, and add a door sill with rubber seals for both doors, this ventilation path will thereby be cut off.

I therefore intend to put a 6" (= diameter of air vents) hole in the wall by the door (nearer to the ceiling) and provide a silencer on the inside of the Studio between the brick wall and the Isolation wall. (The inner isolation structure is not shown in the diagrams here. The proposed vent is marked in green)


I was wondering if I should include any sort of fan in either of the silencers (there is another silencer planned to affit to the exhaust vent in the Studio)?

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Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

I might have missed something about your ceiling, but how are you attaching the plasterboard?
Is the central section of the ceiling open?

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inkspotproductions
www.bantamstudio.info

Yes the central section is open. The drywall only forms a perimeter roughly 1/2 a meter wide, which serves to seal the tops of the Isolation walls each side. The area where the pipes cross the ceiling (roughly about a 1/3) will be soffited and sealed, as will the ventilation duct by the front wall.
These compromises are due to the existing construction which is already 2 leaf (ceiling and front wall) and quite effective as is in terms of isolation.

This construction is best seen in the pics in post from Apr 4 on page 2. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15635&start=21

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Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

I've decided to keep going with this post and if should be subsequently decided, can be moved to the construction forum.

So,

From here begins the Construction Phase
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_________________
Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

To begin, here are a couple of photos of the room. The door is still on the wrong - i.e. inside. This has finally been remedied.


In the meantime I busied myself filling in tiny cracks and holes in the mortar. I also caulked the seams between the brick and concrete walls, not to mention around the ventilation duct.


I've also been running a dehumidifier, It seems I can get it down to between 50 and 55%. Here's the lowest I've registered:

_________________
Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

I haven't been completely alone in this endeavour, Murphy has been giving me a hand now and then.


The material was supposed to be delivered on the Monday morning, it came instead on the Tuesday.


Finally I can get started Oops, it seems my saw won't cut deep enough for the 60mm x 80mm
OK, so first I've got to go and buy a new saw

Now the wall frames right and left have been constructed. Each side comprised of two sections which bolt together, or would if my drill bit were longer These frames each anchor to the cement floor ... now why the devil won't the bit go any deeper, I'm using a hammerdrill with a masonry bit... It seems in a couple of holes, I hit rebar So Ill go buy some more drill bits


Next begins the paneling with fermacell. By jeez those things are heavy!
The original plan was to construct the "inside-out" wall on the floor and then raise it into place. I realized that this was not going to work, as the end weight of the individual wall sections will be upwards of a 1/4 Tonne and there's no way to get enough manpower physically around to raise it, sooo.. I've decided to build the wall standing upright, half a meter away from it's final destination, and if it's too heavy to lift and drag, then I'll try using a car jack.

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Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

Ahhh! My good friend Murphy! I know him only too well. He's always ready and willing to "help", isn't he!

Wall jacks!? You can't rent them where you live?

- Stuart -

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I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

The wall jacks have yet to be instsalled but they are reserved for telephone and network.

... or are you serious?

At any rate, as I was applying the first layer of Fermacell, it occurred to me the screws I bought were mean't for the second layer, i.e. longer than necessary , secondly, the power screwdriver (B&D) was not up for the job So it's back to the store for more stuff.

The Fermacell panels are spaced a few millimeters apart, these seams have been mudded with a special plaster from Fermacell which has better adhesion than normal plaster or joint compound, while also retaining the properties of the panels themselves. Later these mudded seams plus the mudded screw depressions were sanded in preparation for the second layer. These same seams will be caulked on the inner side of the wall.

In the meantime I've added the second layer of Fermacell, ensuring that no seams coincided. The mudded seams on this layer have only been lightly sanded. The layer of Rockwool has been applied and kept in place with strips of chicken wire mesh stapled to the panels. I also used a spray adhesive here and there to tack the Rockwool in place 'til it was bound by the mesh (the adhesive alone would never hold the wool as it frays apart too easily).


So, the section is finished and ready to be moved into place. A strip of 40mm wide adhesive backed neoprene seal has been applied to the top of the brick wall, where the Fermacell ceiling panels will butt against to help seal the space between the walls.


Well my son came over and in about a half hour we had the wall moved into place (with the car jack) .

Uhoh, it appears I let Murphy draw the designation lines on the floor at the time when I was considering a single layer of Fermacell. Much worse, the drilled anchor holes are also off
At least the closed cell foam strip I affixed to the bottom of the sole plate survived the journey intact.

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Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

Yes, I am very serious! When you have a wall that is too heavy or too large to be lifted by hand, you use wall jacks...

http://www.industrialladder.com/listPro ... goryID=368
http://www.toolfetch.com/Category/Roofi ... /48583.htm

That's the normal way of tilting walls into position.


- Stuart -

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I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

Just a bit of confusion here....Wall Jacks: jacks to put a wall in place. vs. Wall Jacks: a place to plug in a phone line/ethernet cable etc.


Symantics......lol

Ok Stuart,

I figured you were serious. Must admit I've never seen these before.

But you will notice that these work fine in an open environment (as the pictures attest). but in a confined room where the top of the wall is virtually the height of the room and as in my case where the height is also nearly the room width (about a half a meter to spare), it just wouldn't work unfortunately.

My car jack idea worked fine though two jacks at each end might have been faster, but I simply moved the jack between the two ends and slowly walked the wall into place while my son kept the wall from tipping.
Good to bear in mind though, and hopefully might help some others.

_________________
Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

Update:

Finally all 4 sections of the side walls are now in place. The final section was a little more problematic as I had to go around the plop pipe, but mission accomplished.

Now I just need to do the framing on the front wall and one more isolation wall at the back - with a door in it. Then onto the soffits and ceiling rim.

I was really kind of hoping for some comment on the ventilation I described earlier before I commence work on that wall.

_________________
Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...

Is it my imagination, or do I see sheets of drywall where the edges are nowhere near the studs, and are not attached to anything?

Maybe it's just lines drawn on the wall, but from those photos, it looks exactly like the first layer of drywall was not put on correctly, and is offset a very large distance from where it should be: the edges are a long way from lining up with the studs (at least 10 or 12 inches).

If that's the case, then firstly WHY was it done like that, and secondly what's the plan for keeping that drywall in place? How are you going to put more wood on those exposed edges and screw it in place, if you can no longer get to the other side of the wall?


- Stuart -

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I want this studio to amaze people. "That'll do" doesn't amaze people.

Ah Stuart, you have the eyes of an eagle.

Yes the seams between panels do not all ine up on studs. The studs are 60mm apart (except for either end which are closer together) to accomodate for standard widths of rockwool and fiberglass.

First and foremost, you have to put drywall out of your head.
These panels are all Fermacell which although similar, has many properties which are far superior to normal drywall. One of these properties is it's exceptional ability to hold screws! In fact the manufacturer suggests doing just this for multiple layers. In fact, they supply 3 different lengths of screws one for the first layer into studs, one for the second layer through the first into studs, and one extra short type for screwing just into the first drywall layer without studs.

Other advantages of Fermacell panels are that just with the standard panels they are much denser than normal drywall, have a much higher impact resistance, and can even be used in flooring. They are inherently fireproof, and water-resistant, without having to buy special variants as one does with drywall (though there is a more waterproof version). In addition to a product specific jointing compound, they also supply a bonding agent which can be used to glue panels edge to edge. I elected not to do this but did use the joining compound on the outer seams (I will additionally caulk the inner seams).
Something else that is possible with Fermacell that you could never do with drywall - you can soak it in water for about 8 hours, take it out and clamp it to a form. Upon drying it resumes all of it's original properties, and you now have a custom formed (curved) wall panel (Great for those curved plane diffusors, not to mention the possibilities for custom waveguiding walls for an RFZ).
Finally, Fermacell is a 100% green product - all waste material is recycled back into the product which itself is made from recyled paper fiber and gypsum.

So yes you see correctly, but this is a technique that can be used with this particular material, with no need for extra wood or framing.

http://buildingmaterials.co.uk/Fermacell.html

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Brian
As you slide down the bannister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way...