Garage / music multi-use room renovation
Posted: Mon, 2024-Feb-19, 17:37
Hi -
I'm planning a renovation of my converted attached garage to make it a more 'livable' work space and increase isolation primarily between the garage and the house so that when I use the space to practice drum set I don't drive my wife crazy. Isolation to the outside world is less of a concern. Street noise is limited (and I will rarely be using the space for recording), and my nearest neighbor is about 150' away through light foliage, and the next nearest over 400' through a few dozen feet of trees (estimated).
So the two main objectives are:
The space is ~29' x 20.5'
Current ceiling height is 7.5'
Floor is concrete
Wall adjoining house is cinder block (to adjoining basement) up to current ceiling height, then exterior framing above that (currently adjoining the garage 'attic' space).
I'm hiring a contractor to do the renovation (or at least the heavy lifting) and they'll be working with a structural engineer to vault the ceiling. They'll be cutting out truss work, sistering additional rafter beams, and installing some collar ties to provide the necessary structural support. The contractor estimated that I'll get an additional ~3' of height in the center, which will slope to roughly the current ceiling height at the walls.
We discussed installing insulation, resilient channel, drywall, MLV, etc. on the wall adjoining the house to reduce transmission, but in reading this and other forums, I know that a room-within-a-room design is the way to go to minimize transmission.
Because this isn't primarily a recording space, and I want to have one large room (for flexibility of uses) and operable windows/screen doors for when I'm doing non-music or quiet music work in nice weather, as a starting point I'm wondering what the best compromise is to minimize sound transmission and construction costs related to the build. For example, does it make sense to build a room within a room, but have penetrations through the inner leaf to the operable windows and doors, or am I compromising the integrity of isolation sufficiently that I should just focus on separation and mass of the wall adjoining the house, and add mass to the walls/ceiling otherwise to simplify the build-out?
I feel like I need to answer this basic question of structural design before I go further in designing the space.
The house and existing door to the basement are the top of this image.
Thank you for any thoughts/advice on this, and apologies if this question is answered somewhere on the forum - I've read a bunch but haven't come across anything that addresses this specific question clearly (i.e. value of 'compromised' MSM design vs. decoupling one wall for reduced build complexity).
Cheers,
Nick
I'm planning a renovation of my converted attached garage to make it a more 'livable' work space and increase isolation primarily between the garage and the house so that when I use the space to practice drum set I don't drive my wife crazy. Isolation to the outside world is less of a concern. Street noise is limited (and I will rarely be using the space for recording), and my nearest neighbor is about 150' away through light foliage, and the next nearest over 400' through a few dozen feet of trees (estimated).
So the two main objectives are:
- Substantially reduce transmission to the main house
- Provide an acoustic space that sounds great for in-room listening, music listening & making (mostly digital and analog synthesis), drums (with very occasional recording)
The space is ~29' x 20.5'
Current ceiling height is 7.5'
Floor is concrete
Wall adjoining house is cinder block (to adjoining basement) up to current ceiling height, then exterior framing above that (currently adjoining the garage 'attic' space).
I'm hiring a contractor to do the renovation (or at least the heavy lifting) and they'll be working with a structural engineer to vault the ceiling. They'll be cutting out truss work, sistering additional rafter beams, and installing some collar ties to provide the necessary structural support. The contractor estimated that I'll get an additional ~3' of height in the center, which will slope to roughly the current ceiling height at the walls.
We discussed installing insulation, resilient channel, drywall, MLV, etc. on the wall adjoining the house to reduce transmission, but in reading this and other forums, I know that a room-within-a-room design is the way to go to minimize transmission.
Because this isn't primarily a recording space, and I want to have one large room (for flexibility of uses) and operable windows/screen doors for when I'm doing non-music or quiet music work in nice weather, as a starting point I'm wondering what the best compromise is to minimize sound transmission and construction costs related to the build. For example, does it make sense to build a room within a room, but have penetrations through the inner leaf to the operable windows and doors, or am I compromising the integrity of isolation sufficiently that I should just focus on separation and mass of the wall adjoining the house, and add mass to the walls/ceiling otherwise to simplify the build-out?
I feel like I need to answer this basic question of structural design before I go further in designing the space.
The house and existing door to the basement are the top of this image.
Thank you for any thoughts/advice on this, and apologies if this question is answered somewhere on the forum - I've read a bunch but haven't come across anything that addresses this specific question clearly (i.e. value of 'compromised' MSM design vs. decoupling one wall for reduced build complexity).
Cheers,
Nick
so air exchange + temperature, humidity, filtering - so either an ERV or HRV unit in addition to a split unit or two.