# Basement insulation & home theater design?



## shponglefan (Jan 28, 2012)

I'm in the process of redoing the finished part of my basement for a modern home theater. The current basement is straight out of the 70's and just awful looking, not to mention insulated poorly.

The two options I am thinking of are this:

4 inches of extruded polystyrene, furring strips and then drywall over top; R-20 insulation value

OR

2 inches of extruded polystyrene, 2x4 stud wall insulated w/ R-14 Roxul insulation, drywall over top; R-24 insulation value

I'm currently leaning towards the former. While it is technically slightly worse insulation value (R-20 versus R-24), it would go up a bit easier than having to build a 2x4 stud wall. And I'm not planning on putting anything on the walls (i.e. shelving, etc) which would require a stud wall for support.

On the other hand, from an acoustic perspective, would the second wall type be better? I plan to hang acoustic panels on the walls anyway. So I'm not sure how much of an impact the underlying wall construction would have, acoustically speaking.

Also I have built a wall to the latter specifications. So framing a 2x4 wall isn't much of an issue. I just don't want to have to do it if there is not much benefit to do so.

Any thoughts?

edited to add: I want to clarify that this is strictly referring to the foundation walls, NOT the interior walls.


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

The 2nd solution is far superior. The first has basically zero acoustic value.

Bryan


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## MrAngles (May 1, 2012)

I went with the first option in my basement to save space and money. Aside from the weaker support for shelves and whatnot though, keep in mind the limited space in the walls for wiring. Putting outlets in is a big pain, you end up having to dig into the insulation to make room for it.

As far as acoustic value I don't have any complaints about mine, but there are soundproofing issues with it that I had to creatively work around.


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