basement studio ventilation: help!

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dr_penner

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Hi, everyone

After a long year of tending to my new son, I finally have some time to get back to my studio project. I need some suggestions about how to ventilate my basement studio.

The house is a generic rectangular 1100 sq. foot residence with a basement and one ground floor. The space I have is an 11' X 14' area of the basement (south east corner).

The furnace/central A/C unit is in the west end of the building and the main duct runs the length of the house, from west to east. The individual room ducts run at 90 degrees to this, each branching off of the main duct to enter each room, be it upstairs or downstairs.

My problem is that I anticipate a fair degree of crosstalk between the basement studio room and the upstairs rooms (esp. bedrooms). The sound would only have to go back up the studio room duct, against the airflow, to the main duct, over a few feet, and then out the next room duct, conducting sound from studio to bedroom.

Any suggestions as to how I can make use of the existing vent (or not) to minimize my cross-talk?


Options I am considering:

1) Ending the duct into the studio ceiling with a typical register and then having a temporary hatch on the ceiling to close it off in an airtight fashion [as suggested by Auralex: Acoustics 101]

2) Having the duct enter the room, run along the ceiling and wall and exiting at the floor with a register [adds three 90 degree bends and gets the hole low in the room]

3) Tunneling the duct through staggered stud walls [entering through the top plate exiting into the room from the side]

4) Complex solution: having an HVAC contractor design and build an entirely separate main duct which comes off of the main furnace plenum and is dedicated to the one studio room alone [not a great option; requires at least 5-6 90degree bends and coming from the opposite side of the building]


By the way, I frequently see online reference to a flexible rubber material to connect the ducts outside the room to the ventilation hardware inside the room. The point is obviously to eliminate transferred vibration, but where do I get such stuff?? The guys at Home Depot have no idea what I'm talking about.

By the way part 2: I assume that I'll need an exhaust vent for this scheme to work. I plan to just run some flexible duct at great length into the laundry room adjacent to the studio. Lots of 90 degree bends anticipated. Any suggestions there?


Kurt Penner
 
Off the top of my head, I'd say combine approaches 1 & 4, plus use oversized ductwork with a baffle. You'll need to do the same with a return air.

A word of caution: if you're at all loud, you may want to forget the lofty goal of letting Junior sleep silently while you play a floor below. I tried the same with all grades of resilient channeling, rockwool, etc. It cut down the sound transmission considerably, but not enough to make the difference.

I'm now making a detached studio...
 
How loud I am comes in degrees. The least I'd like is to play my classical guitar/flamenco imitation with abandon. The most I'd like is to crank up a guitar amp to moderate levels and rock out; not as loud as a club but maybe as loud as moderate home stereo level. How was your basement for this kind of loudness?

As to separate buildings, this is not currently an option. I am dreaming of such for our next house when it happens.


Kurt Penner
 
What about using a POD with earphones? Not as nice, but DEFINITELY easier!

Just a thought.
 
Got a POD with headphones. Like it, but still would love to be sitting next to a good sounding amp instead. And more importantly, direct recording options are no help for acoustic music like the classical guitar that I mentioned. Have looked at the Godin Multiac nylon strings (very impressive), but to me nothing sounds nicer than a well-played acoustic instrument.

Moreover, the wife has woken up from just the sound of a solidbody electric guitar being played in the basement, unplugged no less! Mind you that was when I was playing directly under our bedroom.


Kurt Penner
 
OK, cool. Just thought I'd throw out the option.

With the air conditioning, baffles and as many turns as you can get, but it is only going to improve the situation, not remove it.
 
Not trying to give you the short answer here, but baffles in the ductwork are the key. Home Depot has duct sections that you put a filter in. Two or three of those back to back would duct down a lot of noise passing through the vents, though not completely, if you are using ordinary HVAC filters. A friend of mine managed to wiggle the filter inners out, and shove in studio foam. But at the price studio foam goes for and how dirty is going to get (he's a smoker), I would have chosen something else. Anyway, hope these ideas helped you out. I see your questions attracted a lot of good, solid advice.
 
By the way, I frequently see online reference to a flexible rubber material to connect the ducts outside the room to the ventilation hardware inside the room. The point is obviously to eliminate transferred vibration, but where do I get such stuff?? The guys at Home Depot have no idea what I'm talking about.
Click to expand...

You must be shopping at the same Home Depot I shop at :)

Anyway, they can order the items, and the one home depot near me (Edison, NJ) had it in stock in limited sizes. Any HVAC contractor can steer you in the right direction. Also, HVAC suppliers can get you the correct pieces you need. HVAC or HEATING AND AIRCONDITIONING in your yellow pages will give you suppliers near you.
 
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