# New Construction - Book suggestions?



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

Hello everyone, a quick intro. I currently have a home theatre in my basement. Current setup is Onkyo receiver, Ascend 7 speaker surround and a SVS sub, I also have a projector with a 89” DIY screen. I will provide full details on my setup in the welcome section later this week. When designing this room and making my speaker choices I did a lot of research on this site, on AVS and on RealTraps. I incorporated a fair amount of OC 703 into my current room per the advice given on Ethan’s website. As you can see I have the basics down (more or less). 

I am currently working on designing a new home for myself. I will be taking all of my current equipment to my new place, but will replace pieces if needed. The reason for this post is I am requesting book or article suggestions from people on how to construct my HT room. I want to try and design things right so I have less to overcome with room treatments. The most critical elements I believe I need to consider are things like room dimension, sound isolation through walls and ceiling and duct work interaction.

This new room will also be in a basement, 9ft ceilings with duct work in the ceiling. I have lots of room to work with, 1,900sf. I would like to make the room an open family type of room as it will also be used for TV viewing, hanging out, etc. While I want the best sound I can get, the room will have to be family friendly first and foremost. Right now the basement has not been laid out at all, so the room can really be any size and any shape though there will need to be 2 bedrooms down there too.

Unfortunately I do not have tons of time to research (which I usually take when making decisions) the construction design, I will have lots of time to set up treatments, speaker placement, etc. but the design needs to be finalized within a month or two so we can start building.

Like I said, I am looking for suggestions on books or articles for construction and design advice. I would also be open to paying someone for their design services, as I am sure there are a number of qualified individuals on here that do that sort of thing (though I am pretty cheap). While I would like to read hundreds of pages on the design and construction elements, I probably need more of a cliff notes version due to time constraints.

Any advice/recommendations are much appreciated; look forward to sharing my process with the group!

Thanks
Eric


----------



## Ted White (May 4, 2009)

Welcome to the Shack Eric! You'll find a lot of helpful people here. If sound isolation is a key (as you mentioned) it helps to determine wall placement relative to problem areas such as support beams, columns and stairway framing.


----------



## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

Hi Eric

Welcome. I'd be happy to discuss your room requirements with you when you're ready.

Bryan


----------



## bbieger (Sep 15, 2009)

I looked for decent books but never really found any. A bought a couple home theater magazines as well and they were pretty much a joke (geared to people with 10s of thousands to spend on a theater and NO diy info. 

There are so many different aspects to constructing a nice theater that this forum is actually the best place to do research and field questions.


----------



## bbieger (Sep 15, 2009)

Ok, so I realize my post wasn't much help. Do you have an drawings or floorplans? Simply knowing the footprint of the foundation and location of the stairs would help. 9' celings, 1900 sq ft!! A guy could really get carried away 

perhaps you can turn the whole basement into a huge horn subwoofer... 

http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm

(I'm pretty sure that guy has some kind of mental issues) :rubeyes:


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

Wow that is a of a basement bbieger, I will have to show the wife that. 

I will try to upload a pic of the current basement layout at work tommorow. Like I said, right now not to much figured out on the basement floor, still finalizing the first floor design. 
Thanks for the comments so far.


----------



## bbieger (Sep 15, 2009)

Yeah that basement is pretty ridiculous for sure. U probably want to ask The best way but having some kind of space betwen your theater and rooms would be nice. Like a laundry hallwall or something. That said, if I ever build a house from the ground up the washer and dryer are going upstairs. Or at the very least a laundry shoot. 


_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

post 3


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

post 4


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

post 5


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

Sorry, I needed 5 posts to post a link.
Here is a ruff layout of my basement.
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/8851/basementlayout.png 

The exterior walls are set based on my first floor layout. 
A couple of things to point out on the drawing: The 2 white rectangles at the bottom of the drawing are the stairs, the purple square is where one exits the stairs and enters the basement. This cannot change.

There are 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. The dimensions can change, but the general location must stay as is due to egress window location (given the outside terrain).

The room to the far left (with the green spot) is the furnace room. Its location and size can change, but the builder wants it in this general location due to ducting issues. The main trunk duct would run right down the middle of the house, with vents coming off of it for the rooms above and below.

I have an L shaped couch in the room, this is the couch I have in my current HT room. I may move it upstairs and go with HT recliners instead (not sure yet).

Other considerations that can be designed around the HT room:
I want a small wet bar area in the basement, in the vicinity of the HT room.
I want a rather large workout room, around 250 sf.
I want a storage room for junk, does not have to be that large.

What do you guy think???? One Idea I had was to pour a 6 inch concrete wall between the HT room and the bedroom(s), I thought this would be better than a double insulated wall, but not sure. I do not really want to “box in” the HT room, but I do want to reduce the amount of sound getting into the bedrooms. 

Thanks
Eric


----------



## patchesj (Jun 17, 2009)

Sound isolation and "open" type room don't really mix..


----------



## patchesj (Jun 17, 2009)

Even with a 6" concrete wall in the middle of the basement, the sound is going to use the flanking path via the HVAC system and get to the rest of the house. Unless you also did something to the ceiling to isolate it, you are also going to have a pathway directly to the 1st floor.


----------



## bbieger (Sep 15, 2009)

Patches hit the nail on the head. Sounds to me that paying for some sort of consult from Ted white or Bryan pape could really pay off in spades. Those two are the pros and while I'm a huge fan of learning and figuring it out on my own, they will be much more capable of sifting through all the variables and providing the best advice given your goals. Your likely to save $ in the long run by not spending cash on frivelous isolation efforts or building a HT that is a null factory.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## bbieger (Sep 15, 2009)

Just wanted to throw this out there since your in the design phase- have you thought of using hydronic radiant floor heating? Takes up way less space, is completly silent, more energy efficient, and way better for indoor air quality. A friend recently built a house with it and honestly I wouldn't build a new home any other way. Heat that rises up from toasty floors just makes all the sense in the world to me.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

bbieger said:


> Just wanted to throw this out there since your in the design phase- have you thought of using hydronic radiant floor heating? Takes up way less space, is completly silent, more energy efficient, and way better for indoor air quality. A friend recently built a house with it and honestly I wouldn't build a new home any other way. Heat that rises up from toasty floors just makes all the sense in the world to me.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I have not really considered it. In NE electricity is cheap, and I am looking at doing an all electric house so to avoid the $15 per month hookup fee the gas company charges. Of course I could heat the water with electric, but it costs almost 2x more than gas. Heating and cooling I am looking at doing a heatpump, which is way cheaper than gas furnace. Plus with radian heating you would still need all the ducting to for the central AC. Toasy floors does sound nice though!


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

patchesj said:


> Even with a 6" concrete wall in the middle of the basement, the sound is going to use the flanking path via the HVAC system and get to the rest of the house. Unless you also did something to the ceiling to isolate it, you are also going to have a pathway directly to the 1st floor.


True. I would be intersted in doing ceiling isolation and HVAC isolation dependant on the costs. Isolation to the two basement rooms is the most critical. Right now me an the wife have no kids, but when we do that is where they will sleep. The kids will be to young to watch action types of movies (PG13 and R rated) so we will have to watch them while they sleep. Sound propogating upstairs is not as big of an issue for me.


----------



## tilt (Mar 11, 2010)

bbieger said:


> Patches hit the nail on the head. Sounds to me that paying for some sort of consult from Ted white or Bryan pape could really pay off in spades. Those two are the pros and while I'm a huge fan of learning and figuring it out on my own, they will be much more capable of sifting through all the variables and providing the best advice given your goals. Your likely to save $ in the long run by not spending cash on frivelous isolation efforts or building a HT that is a null factory.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Does Ted or Bryan have a post discussing their services? Or for that matter is their a list of people offering consuling service on this forum? Like I said before, I am pretty cheap, but am willing to pay for a consultant.


----------



## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

I don't advertise my services specifically as I own my own consulting as well as being hired as a consultant for GIK. If you'd like to discuss, shoot me a PM with your number and I'll give you a call to discuss pricing, what's included, etc.

Bryan


----------



## bbieger (Sep 15, 2009)

this is what I thought about....

I'm not a home designer and I have no idea what the situation is but IMO..

The bedrooms look small.

A "sealed off" HT has more of that home theater feel to it and is much better acoustically than one huge room. 

The theater doesn't have to be massively wide. 15' would be plenty. 

Anywho, just throwing around ideas (and not working liek I should be)


----------

