Garage to studio conversion

  • Thread starter Thread starter StonedSunset
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StonedSunset

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I have just found out i won the bid on a house and can truly start thinking about building my studio in the extra garage out back of this place. first off, i have a budget, i'm not sure what it is until my wife checks out the finances, but she said i have to, "do it right the first time as cheap as you can." the garage is brand new construction, i don't have the exact measurements right now but it's a standard two-car, the measurements will be posted shortly. but this place doesn't even have the floor in it yet. right now its a sandbox with walls. the plan as of now is to pour concrete my understanding is that that is a good place to start. there is no wiring of any sort yet, the whole house was very recently equipped with clean 200 amp service, and has already dug a wire to deliver power to the garage. that being said, the garage is pretty close to the house and the neighbors houses, so i need to soundproof the hell out of this thing cheaply. it's also Michigan and we will only have space-heaters the the winter. i already have a good friend with a drywall business who said he has special drywall for sound dampening and absorption, but i don't know what kind of insulation i need to have in the exterior walls.its built using trusses, so the ceiling is high, but i'm not sure if it is possible to work around the trusses to use the angle of the ceiling (i would appreciate any thoughts on this especially:)), but even if i was limited to a flat ceiling, it's 8 feet tall at least. there are no windows and two steel entry doors as well as the big garage door.i would like to design the studio in a way we can use the garage door to load equipment through still, but i dont know if it's insulated or not.i think you pretty much know as much as i do at this point. please if you took the time to read this give me a suggestion or two. i really need to do this right. i will post more as the planning moves along and as soon as i have the measurements ill put them up with sketch or something. thanks
 
I don't think he's being an elitist, just giving you some straight up advice.

You mentioned the neighbors, so I'm guessing you want sound isolation because you plan on being loud in the studio. Sound isolation doesn't come cheap and the more sound isolation you want, the more it costs. The key to sound isolataion is separating the sound inside from the walls outside and that usually entails a room within a room where the is no attachments to the outer walls. Mass is also key for sound isolation. Lots of mass and drywall is a cheap method for obtaining mass.

And don't forget the permits.... if you're going to be doing this much construction, you definitely want a permit and inspections. If there were ever to be an accident and someone got hurt, your insurance company might not pay.

There's lots of discussions in the Studio Build forum to get you started. Go through and read up and get a good sense of what you need to do.
 
StonedSunset said:
you're a bit of an elitist huh?
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Dude, he's giving you good advise. From reading your post it is obvious you don't even know how much you don't even know. Ethan has some good information on his site. Another site you might want to check out is John Sayers (here http://www.johnlsayers.com/).

I would recommend not spending any money until you've done some research and spent some time on these sites.
 
Chili said:
And don't forget the permits.... if you're going to be doing this much construction, you definitely want a permit and inspections. If there were ever to be an accident and someone got hurt, your insurance company might not pay.
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i appreciate the advice. my father has been a licensed contractor for about 35 years, he will make sure it's all done right and legal. thanks for the rest of your reply too:).
 
so i need to soundproof the hell out of this thing cheaply.
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umm, there is no such thing as "cheap soundproofing"....basically because there is no such thing as "soundproof" Think NUCLEAR explosion.:rolleyes: Or a shuttle takeoff. When you begin to understand this principle, then you might begin to research TRANSMISSION LOSS.
 
I put up a 64' x 30' garage and half is my studio. I used R-19 insulation in the walls and R-38 in the ceilings. I built walls inside of the outer garage walls. So I have about 2" of air space between the insulation in the inner and outer wall. If that makes sense. So my wall consist of, drywall (plain), 2x4 inner wall with R-19 stuffed in it, then 2" of nothing, then the outside garage wall. I have no sound issues what so ever and I can get concert level (actually louder) sound and you can barely hear it outside. And the same goes for sound coming in. Also with all that insulation, I heat the studio with (2) 8' 220 electrical baseboard heaters. The thermostats are on the lowest setting and it stays nice and warm.
A few pointers on electrical work. You can either run a sub panel off of your breaker box in the house, which may be limited, or you can do this. This method allows you to run 100amp or 200amp to your garage. Take a look at the inside of your meter box (if your not comfortable doing so, have a electrician do it) and see if its has extra lugs. Lugs are the connection points for the main feed (from the pole) and for the 100amp or 200 amp line going into your house or building. I say 100 or 200 because those are the most common in residential houses and buildings. If you have any free lugs you can connect a 100 amp or 200 amp line to the extra lugs and run that line to the garage and place a 100amp or 200amp panel in the garage. That way its not attached to you home panel and you can run alot more stuff with no issues. Also grounding issues are less likely to happen. If your meter box does not have any extra lugs, then buy a new meter box (6 lug). They are cheap.
Some people will say "Oh just have your electric company run a new meter and line to your garage". Well that will cost you alot more. When I was building I was going to have my electric company run a new meter and line. Well, the engineer from the electric company said "Save money, tie into the existing meter". He explained the above process and all was good.
Here is a picture of the outside as well as some inside pics (a few years old), before I put up some sound treatments. While not the greatest, it works very well.
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DCP_2319.jpg

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thank you everybody for the help. i truly don't have any idea what I'm getting myself into (or maybe my wife doesn't) but i want to learn:D. thank you for the pictures of your space too dude!
 
Just remember to take your time with the electric. Not done right and you will have noise issues. Proper grounding is a must.
 
yeah, my dads, house, or as i like to call it, my first studio space, had noisy power, i hated it. thats why i was so excited to see this house and the way the guy had the power run. i won't chince on :)the details, this is very important to me you know. thank you again for the advice.
 
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