We have a lovely sun room off the back of our house. It's now functioning as a Roxul storage warehouse. 11 bags total. Takes up a surprising amount of space.
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My New Studio Build (perhaps overly detailed)
- Thread starter silky smoove
- Start date
Long range forecast is looking pretty good for construction on 4/18. Hopefully it holds.
Weather is being a little tricky. This morning the forecast for the 18th-20th showed no rain. Now it's showing a 60% chance of rain on the 20th. Hopefully that doesn't get worse because I made the decision this morning to not postpone the building delivery. We're a go for next Monday. One week from today the structure starts being constructed.
On Sunday I'm going to stuff all of the steel substructure joist bays with Roxul and attach wire mesh to the vent holes to keep rodents from getting into it. The vents are very small and the area will be backfilled with 1.5" river rock, so it's unlikely anything will get in, but regardless I'm going to go the extra mile to ensure that things stay rodent free.
On Sunday I'm going to stuff all of the steel substructure joist bays with Roxul and attach wire mesh to the vent holes to keep rodents from getting into it. The vents are very small and the area will be backfilled with 1.5" river rock, so it's unlikely anything will get in, but regardless I'm going to go the extra mile to ensure that things stay rodent free.
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Building is on schedule to begin on Monday. Weather is looking good.
Tomorrow I'll be cutting Roxul and stuffing the joist bays so everything is ready for the builders on Monday.
Speaking of things that are good; I just got back from a 4-day trip to New Mexico and all the parts from Warmoth for my Tele build had arrived. All I'm waiting on is the Babicz bridge and the wiring diagram, and I'll be ready to build this as well as the studio.
Tomorrow I'll be cutting Roxul and stuffing the joist bays so everything is ready for the builders on Monday.
Speaking of things that are good; I just got back from a 4-day trip to New Mexico and all the parts from Warmoth for my Tele build had arrived. All I'm waiting on is the Babicz bridge and the wiring diagram, and I'll be ready to build this as well as the studio.
Better pics and a full update to come later, but for now... This happened. So much Roxul.
A little birdie (my wife) just told me that there are builders at my house...
congrats man! the big day has arrived. i can't wait to see this thing in pictures, i'd love to do something similar one day and the size of this is perfect. big enough for live tracking but small enough to be affordable.
There was a complication with the type of siding I selected for this (Hardie Plank to match the house) in that they can't paint it in the factor where they prefabricate the wall panels. As such it will be arriving unpainted and then I'll have to hire a painter to come out and get it lookin' all purdy 'n such. No biggie, especially because it won't be me doing the work 
Building Construction Day One:
No construction day would be complete without me doing a bad impersonation. This time we get Rambo... Or something like that...
My task for the day was to fill the steel substructure's joist bays with Roxul, which is rockwool, or more specifically spun mineral wool insulation. To complicate things I needed to find a material that would be okay with being placed directly on top of the rock that makes up the building pad. Traditional fiberglass insulation is not mold-resistant. It does a fair job, but eventually it can get moldy and gross. Sand was my first thought, but as I'll explain later, it just wasn't feasible. That's when I turned to rockwool. It's completely inorganic since it's comprised entirely of minerals, and as such offers no food for mold. On top of that, it's "relatively" easy to carry where you need
Don't worry... I got it!
I needed something that would fill the hollow voids in the joist bays to remove the drum head'like resonance from footfalls in the structure when walking around. We've all played on hollow stages before and know the problems that occur as a result, especially in terms of boomy low end and loud thumpy sounds when pulling off incredible David Lee Roth style dance moves on stage. I have plans for how to deal with airborne sound transmission in the space, which involves multiple layers of DensDecking (a drywall type product that's more resistant to impact than traditional drywall) with Green Glue sandwiched between them. That plan doesn't deal with what are called "flanking paths" which occur when an object makes contact with another. Stick your ear up to an 8' long 2x4 and have a buddy thump on the other end of it with his knuckles. You'll hear the thumping much more loudly with your ear pressed against the 2x4 than you would if it were just out in the open air. This is the result of a flanking path, and specifically why I'm filling the bays with Roxul. I was initially planning to use sand as it also provides an excellent source of damping (the same mechanism that Green Glue creates which converts acoustic energy into thermal energy), but the cost and incredibly difficult labor made me shy away from it. This was one of the areas where I needed to consider budget and time constraints. The Roxul should do 90% of what the sand would have done, only at about 10% of the cost, and an installation time of two hours as opposed to two days.
The joist bays are 11" on the two ends, and 12" on the other 22 bays. This particular type of Roxul comes in widths to accommodate 2x dimensional lumber (which measures 1.5") spaced 16" on-center. Doing some quick math here: 16" - ((1.5"/2) + (1.5"/2)) = 14.5" wide batts. That meant that I needed to cut about 3.5" off of each batt to install them in the bays. I tried a razor blade like you'd use on fiberglass insulation, but the Roxul was too dense. Remember that fiberglass insulation is in the range of 1-2pcf (pounds per cubic foot). Roxul of this density is 8pcf. You can set a sheet of plywood on it and there's only a slight amount of visible compression. I turned to my trusty reciprocating saw (comonly known by the brand name Skilsaw) and tried slicing through it. It made a mess.
Messy messy messy
What ended up proving to be the most successful method was to make a series of perforations across the length of each batt using the reciprocating saw, and then tearing the hunks off by hand.
This doesn't need to be precise since it's just a source of mass to fill hollow bays. I used the "leavings" from tearing it off to fill large sections of the bays with great success. This allowed me to use 3.5 fewer bags than I purchased, which is great because I'll be using more Roxul once I get to the acoustic treatments portion of the project.
This was the scene at the end of the day:
The builders just arrived at my house this morning and have already installed the 3/4" LP tongue and groove decking over the top of the substructure, so the Roxul is now invisible, save for a few vent holes down each side that I'll be covering with wire mesh to keep critters out. Getting closer!
No construction day would be complete without me doing a bad impersonation. This time we get Rambo... Or something like that...
My task for the day was to fill the steel substructure's joist bays with Roxul, which is rockwool, or more specifically spun mineral wool insulation. To complicate things I needed to find a material that would be okay with being placed directly on top of the rock that makes up the building pad. Traditional fiberglass insulation is not mold-resistant. It does a fair job, but eventually it can get moldy and gross. Sand was my first thought, but as I'll explain later, it just wasn't feasible. That's when I turned to rockwool. It's completely inorganic since it's comprised entirely of minerals, and as such offers no food for mold. On top of that, it's "relatively" easy to carry where you need
Don't worry... I got it!
I needed something that would fill the hollow voids in the joist bays to remove the drum head'like resonance from footfalls in the structure when walking around. We've all played on hollow stages before and know the problems that occur as a result, especially in terms of boomy low end and loud thumpy sounds when pulling off incredible David Lee Roth style dance moves on stage. I have plans for how to deal with airborne sound transmission in the space, which involves multiple layers of DensDecking (a drywall type product that's more resistant to impact than traditional drywall) with Green Glue sandwiched between them. That plan doesn't deal with what are called "flanking paths" which occur when an object makes contact with another. Stick your ear up to an 8' long 2x4 and have a buddy thump on the other end of it with his knuckles. You'll hear the thumping much more loudly with your ear pressed against the 2x4 than you would if it were just out in the open air. This is the result of a flanking path, and specifically why I'm filling the bays with Roxul. I was initially planning to use sand as it also provides an excellent source of damping (the same mechanism that Green Glue creates which converts acoustic energy into thermal energy), but the cost and incredibly difficult labor made me shy away from it. This was one of the areas where I needed to consider budget and time constraints. The Roxul should do 90% of what the sand would have done, only at about 10% of the cost, and an installation time of two hours as opposed to two days.
The joist bays are 11" on the two ends, and 12" on the other 22 bays. This particular type of Roxul comes in widths to accommodate 2x dimensional lumber (which measures 1.5") spaced 16" on-center. Doing some quick math here: 16" - ((1.5"/2) + (1.5"/2)) = 14.5" wide batts. That meant that I needed to cut about 3.5" off of each batt to install them in the bays. I tried a razor blade like you'd use on fiberglass insulation, but the Roxul was too dense. Remember that fiberglass insulation is in the range of 1-2pcf (pounds per cubic foot). Roxul of this density is 8pcf. You can set a sheet of plywood on it and there's only a slight amount of visible compression. I turned to my trusty reciprocating saw (comonly known by the brand name Skilsaw) and tried slicing through it. It made a mess.
Messy messy messy
What ended up proving to be the most successful method was to make a series of perforations across the length of each batt using the reciprocating saw, and then tearing the hunks off by hand.
This doesn't need to be precise since it's just a source of mass to fill hollow bays. I used the "leavings" from tearing it off to fill large sections of the bays with great success. This allowed me to use 3.5 fewer bags than I purchased, which is great because I'll be using more Roxul once I get to the acoustic treatments portion of the project.
This was the scene at the end of the day:
The builders just arrived at my house this morning and have already installed the 3/4" LP tongue and groove decking over the top of the substructure, so the Roxul is now invisible, save for a few vent holes down each side that I'll be covering with wire mesh to keep critters out. Getting closer!
Passinwind
I know nothing.
- Dec 3, 2003
- 23,079
- 46,041
- Disclosures
- Designer/Toaster Tech @ Passinwind Electronics
It's hard to see, but they're installing the MR-88 earth anchors and hurricane strapping. There are eight of these that extend 4' into the ground, have a large hook system that opens up as you pull it out (like a drywall anchor), then attach to a rod, and finally a metal strap that goes up and over the walls into the inside of the building before terminating back where they started. The straps are screwed in place directly to a stud. Heavy duty stuff!
Also: Full credit to my adorable wife for taking almost all of the photos (all of the good ones) over the course of this thread.
