Plan of Attack!

[OzNimbus]

Greetings all, first time Poster here.

Here's my story. I've owned and operated a small studio for the last four years out of my basement... and it's time to move on. With 6.5 foot cielings, I'm getting a little tired of cracking my head off the ductwork! (although I'll never get tired of watching the rockstar wannabes do it
Thanks to a little email advice from John Sayers, I've managed to locate a house with a detached garage. With a little luck, I'm hoping to be moved in by January. I'm just waiting for the lawyers to finish their thing.
The Garage itself is 20 by 24 feet, with concrete block walls and a concrete floor. There is no proper cieling yet, just three horizontal beams that are 8 feet off the ground. The roof peaks a great deal higher than that. (didn't get a chance to measure it yet)
There are no vertical beams or anything else occupying the floorspace. It's pretty much a blank slate.
Now, more than anything, I'd love for John to do a custom design for my place, but with the way the Canadian dollar is these days, it's completely out of my budget!
So that bieng said, I've no other choice but to "wing it" thru this design.

A few prelimenary questions:

1) I'm quite sure the horizontal beams can't be removed. They're there for structural integrity. Is it possible to design the studio celings above them? Or am I stuck at the 8 foot limit?

2) Again with the cielings. I understand the whole concept of sealing the outer shell, floating the floors (I was thinking hockey pucks... they're one thing that's dirt cheap in Canada) staggered studs, air gaps, etc, etc. But I haven't been able to get some decent info on doing a ceiling. What's the best way to do it? Cloth covered insulation? A reflective surface? A false cieling with acoustic hangers? What kind of angles should they be on... should they be different for the control room vs. the drum room?

3) What's the best layout for an almost square space? I was thinking on basing it around John's "corner control room" layout.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

You can check out my existing setup at
www.spectresound.org
(the equipment is cool, but the rooms are crap!)

-0z-

 

[Alex W]

Assuming (dangerous, I know) your beams are timber--no big deal. Leave them there and treat the ceiling above. Would be helpful to know how much isolation you need. If it's alot, you'll want to do the ceiling the same way you isolate the walls (insulation in the cavities, RC channel, sheet rock, etc.).

Note so sure about minimum pitch to avoid reflections and standing waves; but you can always add treatment to get these out if it's a problem.

Get yourself a trial version of Smartdraw and lay out your proposed space. Save it as a GIF image and post it back here for comments.

Happy building!

Alex

 

[John Sayers]

Yeah - what Alex said - as usual That roof sounds OK if you line it and leave the beams open.

cheers
JOhn

 

[OzNimbus]

Get yourself a trial version of Smartdraw and lay out your proposed space. Save it as a GIF image and post it back here for comments.

Happy building!

Alex

Thanks for the tip on the program Alex!

 

[sheppard]

oz,you may find those beems kinda hard to work around when it comes time to hang sheet rock(or whatever)on the rafters above them.
one method of raising these beems(ceiling joist)is known as a collar tie.all you need to do is cut shorter ceiling joist and place them at a higher point along the rafters.once these are nailed into place you can remove the old ceiling joist .depending on the pitch of your roof ,you can gain as much as two feet with this method.
NEVER EVER RAISE THE JOIST BEYOND HALF OF THE RAFTER LENGTH!!

SHEPPARD