Jim Ittenbach's Adventures in Soundproofing

Phase V:

The Iso Sill arrived today. The walls will begin to arise this weekend!

Sunday July 3, 2011 was the only day I had to work on my studio project this weekend. I was able to make so decent progress though. The first of the walls began to take form. The area is actually the narrowest part of the studio. It is only a little over eight feet by seven feet. Immediately after this portion of the studio the dimensions change from just over eight feet to a little over 12 feet. This was done to eliminate having to deal with the basement window.

The area created by removing the window from the studio, creates my new office. I was not worried about sound going outside, but I knew that since the window is indented in the cinder block wall, that there would be significant issues trying to keep sound from traveling upstairs near that indentation. I needed a better office space any way.

This is a picture of the back wall where the pegboard once hung. As you can see there is a space between the top of this wall and the joists above. This wall is two inches away from the cinder block wall. The new joists will run in between, but not touching, the existing joists and will sit on top of this wall and a new 2X8 beam that put in after the duct work is finished.

Here you can see the way I have framed out the circuit breaker box and my backup battery for my phone system. I will build a door from two layers of 3/4 inch plywood so I can access the breaker box when I need it.

My Fourth of July weekend consisted of more work on Troubled Basement Studios. The 2x4 walls are now about 50% complete. I applied Iso Sill to the bottom of the newer walls. This week I plan to go back and add Iso Sill to the bottom of the remaining three existing walls before continuing wall construction. Notice the end and fourth stud sets are actually three 2x4s that form slots for the ceiling beams that will surround the I beam and plumbing, creating the soffit to house these items.

Here is a picture of a wall as I am lifting it in place. The gap is to accommodate the I beam an the gas pipe in the ceiling. I plan on using two 5/8 inch layers of plywood between on the bottom of the beams that will be inserted in the two slots in the 2x4 wall. This way I will be able to access all the plumbing for upstairs by removing the screws holding the plywood up. This will affect the acoustics too. It remains to be seen how, but I believe if identified and handled correctly it could be useful.

Here is the same wall in place. Less than 8 feet left for this (26 foot) wall. Notice the space between the cinder block wall and the 2x4 wall. None of the new walls touch anything in the existing structure except the basement wall. Even though it is quite difficult to move the mass of the cement in the basement floor I used Iso Sill on the bottom of the walls to provide a little decoupling between the walls and the floor.

This is a shot across the diagonal of the studio. I will begin connecting the walls soon, but I need to wait for the duct work to be done before I connect the two walls together.

I also cleaned up some mold building in the corner of the basement. It is a rather minor issue caused by my previous dog digging outside the house and a faulty gutter design. I will fix those issues this week as well. I am applying water proof paint to the corner just to be safe. There is no visible water or even dampness. The mold grew for a reason though so I am addressing this as best as I can right now.

Well here we are after working on this project a little more. It is July 9, 2011 and I am about 3/4 of the way done with the walls. I'll need to bring in my duct experts soon. I have only a short wall and one longer wall left (which includes the doorway and the duct entry). I need the duct work done so I can connect and level all the walls in place. Then I will be abel to an accurate measurement for the exact dimensions of the last two walls. This alcove is behind the recording master station. It widens where the recording desk will sit. Room treatment my be a fun challenge.

Next, we see a shot of the recording desk as it exists right now. The intent is to move a table into the alcove shown above to hold my MIDI controller and CD Juke boxes alng with any small items I am working with at the time.

The hardest part of this project so far is moving things around constantly. Especially the bookshelves, because they have to be emptied before you can move them.

In addition to creating the soffit for the I Beam I will also have to enclose the support pole for it. I need 8 more Iso Sill strips to complete the walls, so I will order them and proceed to do some of the smaller projects and prepare for the new duct while I wait for them to arrive.