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Kal's basement Home Theatre/Bar/Brewery build 2.0
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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 1:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


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WTS wrote:
Actually I've never even thought to price out SubZero, probably because they are usually bigger than standard openings allow for. Although the next house I build(hopefully in 5 years when I retire) I'll look into that. SO what's the typical side by side SubZero cost - range?

I don't know what typical cost or ranges are, only what we did. They have fridges of all shapes and sizes and I imagine it'll vary quite a bit. Best that you go see a rep and talk about pricing directly for what you want.

Kal

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WTS




Joined: 08 Mar 2006
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PostLink    Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well when it comes time, in 5 years or so, I'll ask you how your subzero has performed over the years and then decide. Yes I see now they make them in all sizes, I always thought they where only in the over sized department.
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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 3:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Late last week the plumber came and re-did the plumbing rough-in for the bathroom.

The house already had a plumbing rough-in installed by the builder but as is usually the case, things didn't exactly work out for what we wanted done: The bathroom will be larger with a non-standard shower and we're adding a urinal. So everything had to be dug up and moved. The plumber came last week and re-did the rough-in. Today the city inspector came to review and gave his thumbs up. (We pulled permits for all this work so everything is being done by the book and being inspected at each stage).



Now that we have a signed sheet from the inspector for the plumbing, tomorrow concrete can be poured.

Insulation removal has started:



The builder pre-insulates with R12 fiberglass to about a foot from the floor, but we're going to be going with closed cell spray foam. While we could have simply drywalled over the existing insulation and vapour barrier, we chose to go with spray foam for the following reasons:
  • It's considerably more efficient (insulates better/lower heating costs).
  • Unlike loose fiberglass insulation it completely seals the foundation to any air or moisture penetration. This is especially important in the rim joist areas (the area above the concrete foundation but below the first floor). We've already had moisture built-up and ice in those areas over the last winter, partially due to poor sealing from the outside between the sill plate and rim joists (this was sealed up correctly a couple of months ago). Applying spray foam to the inside of the rim joists should (hopefully) stop it completely as it'll create an airtight seal.
  • It will be sprayed right to the floor so it'll also help seal the crack between the foundation wall and floor for radon gas mitigation.
  • Most of the vapour barrier/insulation needs to be removed anyway for the electrical wiring to be installed.
  • Some of the framing needs to be redone to allow for drywall installation.
Some of this framing fixing up has started as well. There are many bent studs or studs that are not lined up correctly to allow for drywall installation. The basement was originally studded on 24" centers to simply allow for easy installation of fiberglass insulation, not for drywall installation.

You'll see in the picture below that 2x3's are being installed to bring the wall out a bit to be in line with the support posts. The support posts are farther into the room than the original framing which doesn't allow for drywall installation:



Most of the sub-floor installation has been completed. Plywood (lighter) installed where tile will be used in the bar area, OSB (darker) where carpet will be used:



Tomorrow we start moving ducts. The HVAC is being completely redone as in many places it drops too low or runs through the middle of the room. Here's a shot from about the second row of Home Theater seating towards the screen wall:



The supply duct will be capped before the large drop under the I-beam and re-routed around the other side of the stairs to the rest of the basement. The cold air return will be moved all the way to the right of the room, creating even sized bulkheads on either side of the home theater ceiling to give it a nice symmetrical look. The duct rework should take about 3 days.

The little area with the door to the left will also be completely removed eventually. They're keeping it in place for now to try and keep the noise and dust from the rest of the house.

In more exciting news: I got news that my new tap tower, drip tray, and other draft beer items should ship from Pennsylvania tomorrow.

Kal

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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 6:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kal, you couda saved some money with the urinal and just peed in the shower Laughing
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WTS




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PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 1:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What's with the electrical wire spacers(2x4's) between the studs? Spray foam, hmm can't say as I ever seen anyone do that in their basement before, what's the typical R value/cost difference? Why the sub floor, maybe you could have just put in radiant heating in the floor if it was for heating comfort. Looking at your plumbing, where are your vent lines for the drains or are the rules different in Ontario, here you pretty much need a vent line for every drain.

Lots of work, are you doing alot of it yourself or are you getting contractors to do the bulk of it? Looking good though.

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kal
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Location: Ottawa, Canada

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PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 1:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
Kal, you couda saved some money with the urinal and just peed in the shower Laughing

True, but then you'd have to turn on the shower a bit to flush... Wink

WTS wrote:
What's with the electrical wire spacers(2x4's) between the studs?

Not sure I follow. What about them? There are 2-3 foot pieces of 1x3" nailed to the foundation wall that the electrician used to run his wiring in the basement. I bet the wiring was done before the framing went up as this would be the easiest way. It's also an easy way to ensure wires are spaced out (not bundled) if you need to pass many.

Quote:
Spray foam, hmm can't say as I ever seen anyone do that in their basement before, what's the typical R value/cost difference?

It's expensive compared to standard fiberglass insulation. Price varies, depending on product used. Typically $2-5 sq/foot or so. But it's considerably better for the reasons I stated earlier.

Quote:
Why the sub floor, maybe you could have just put in radiant heating in the floor if it was for heating comfort.

I don't why you need a sub-floor. This is why I'm paying someone to do all this. Wink I imagine it's better than putting underpad & carpet directly on the concrete floor.

Quote:
Looking at your plumbing, where are your vent lines for the drains or are the rules different in Ontario, here you pretty much need a vent line for every drain.

Every drain is vented. They're near the walls typically.

Quote:
Lots of work, are you doing alot of it yourself or are you getting contractors to do the bulk of it? Looking good though.

It's all being done and organized by the design/build firm we hired (www.justbasementsottawa.ca). They have their own full time carpenters and then sub out plumbing/electrica/HVAC/spray foam/drywall to trades that they're used to working with. I don't manage anything.

We spent months with their designer hashing out the details to come up the with plan, then they implement. We still need to work with them to pick out finishes (carpet/paint/tile/quartz/stone/etc).

I'm going to do some of the low voltage wiring myself (speaking wiring and some CAT5/6) after the framing goes up but that's about it.

If I attempted to do most of this myself there's no way it would get done this decade. There are currently 7 guys working in the basement!

Kal

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My basement/HT/bar/brewery build 2.0


Last edited by kal on Tue May 08, 2012 2:32 pm; edited 1 time in total
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hansilili




Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 2:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
Kal, you couda saved some money with the urinal and just peed in the shower Laughing


He probably needs the "cigarette stub in the urinal" to get the real bar feeling into the Brewery. You can still pee in the shower if you can't reach the hand washbasin.

Cheers
hansilili

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Curt Palme
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PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 3:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't forget conduit between the projector location and the rack. I predict down the road that HDMI and CAT6 will be obsolete, replaced with Fibre.
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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yup, a conduit between the room behind the screen (where the equipment back into) and the projector location is in the plans.
Well, it's not "officially" in the plans. I want one, just have to wait and see how all this duct re-routing works out. Wink I'm hoping it can be a somewhat straight line. Not easy however given that the joists run the opposite direction. (That's a lot of small duct pieces glued together).

I'm not going to use ducts for speakers but will wire for 7.1 for future upgrades (right now I only have 5.1). It's ironic but the speaker wire I pulled out of the old house 5.1 system is more than long enough to do 7.1 in this new house. Mostly because the 3 front speakers will be so close to the equipment. In the old place all speakers used about 50' of wire.

I've already measured out the pieces of wire I have ahead of time and they're perfect. No splices needed either. It's 12ga Home Depot CL2 (in wall rated) stuff. I'll also be bi-wiring because my speakers allow it (2 runs to each speaker). I won't profess to have done A/B comparisons to see if bi-wiring makes any difference in sound, but it's a minimal cost in the grand scheme of things and I already have the wire. If nothing else it gives me a backup wire in case one of the drywall'ers hits one. (Though I do plan on installing the speaker wire far enough away from the strapping so it shouldn't be an issue.

The CAT5/6 I'm going to pull is actually going from the HT equipment rack up to the behind a TV console in the family room (above the rear of the HT). This will be used as a long HDMI run using Lumagen's HDMI-CAT6 cable extender so that we can share the content from one HD-PVR between the HT and the family room TV.

One thing I'm really liking is the fact taht I'll have access to the back of the screen wall. It's a whole separate little room. It means that I can easily add some stuff there in the future like an extra sub, or whatever.

Kal

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ecrabb
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 12:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kal, they can pull flex conduit or what some people call "smurf tube" or low-voltage conduit to your projector and they won't have to piece together small pieces. Once, nice, clean run... Could even have some light bends in it to route around obstructions.

They have 3/4, 1", etc. and even have 2"... Like this:

http://www.amazon.com/2-IN-FLEXIBLE-RACEWAY-TUBING-50/dp/B0008KL8YY

Lots of HT guys even use the smaller stuff for their speaker runs and other low-voltage runs so they can add or change something later.

SC
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Curt Palme
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 2:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From my experience, it's a royal PITA to try and fish wire after the fact through flex. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's been my experience.
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ecrabb
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 3:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, you're right, Curt. Depends how big the flex is, what you're pulling through it, how many bends it has in it, whether you're using lube, and whether you're trying to put a fish through it or using a pull-wire.

But, yes... Definitely easier through straight over-size PVC.

SC
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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 3:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks SC. Not a bad idea at all. I'd pull a pull-string through first which always makes it easier. Good idea! If nothing else it makes it easier to install a straight line of duct perpendicular to (ie: through) joists. There's no way to do that with regular PVC that doesn't bend... you have no choice but to glue 10-20 pieces together.

Very cool. I should have thought of this! I've seen enough HT build threads on AVS that the idea should have popped in my head.

Kal

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Last edited by kal on Wed May 09, 2012 3:40 am; edited 2 times in total
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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 3:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So today was a busy day with people coming and going... we had up to 7 people working away in the basement today. Some redoing the duct work, others pouring new concrete.

I understand now where "tin bangers" (sheet metal workers who do HVAC work) get their name. It's noisy!

Some of the tin that is yet to be installed:



The supply duct coming through the home theater / lounge / bar / brewery was completely removed and the end capped, and right side cold air return duct has been removed as it's going to be moved all the way to the right wall:







The lounge / bar / brewery will instead be supplied by a new duct coming around the other side above the DVD storage / sauna / bathroom:



You can see the start of the supply duct coming out of the furnace stack in the left of the picture above. It'll continue all the way to the right and then down the little hallway/opening.

The major reason for redoing all this duct work is eliminate the previously large 4 x 4 foot drop below an I-beam which falls exactly where the home theater riser step falls. Had we tried to keep it as is, once framed this 4x4 foot dropped ceiling would have resulted in a 6.5 foot ceiling height (that's after paying for an extra foot of basement ceiling height to have almost 9' in most places in the basement). Remove another foot for the 12" riser and you have a lot of bumped heads when anyone steps up to the second row of home theater seats.

Builders are careful to say that you're "paying for an extra foot of ceiling height", not that you're "paying for 9' ceilings". Rightfully so. There's no way to guarantee 9 feet everywhere of course. There was simply no way to have all this duct reworked ahead of the build as you're buying a model that's already been determined.

Curious what it would have looked like if we left it as is and framed it? Here are a few pictures from the builder's model home where they did exactly that:





I find that big 4x4 foot square drop in the middle of the room looks really odd. Remove an extra foot for a home theater riser and it just will not work. (Never mind that they only have one beer on tap in the kegerator). Smile

The secondary reason to redo the ducts is to create even/cohesive bulkheads and not make it look like someone just drywalled over the mess that was there first like you see in the builder model home pictures above.

In our case we're trying to even out things and make turn ducts 'architectural features' that frame the room instead of those weird lumps that appear all over the ceilings in most basements. To the eye it should appear that bulkheads exist because they add something to the room, not because they were created to hide duct-work.

Plumbing drain stacks present these same sorts of problems too - we have one that is in line with the first row of home theater seats that will end up being moved such that it's hidden in the wall framing (breaking concrete/redoing plumbing).

I was really happy to see a lot of this tin work go as smoothly as it did. At least it appeared to go smoothly. I was worried that there was going to be a lot of 'gotchas' that weren't obvious when the work was first estimated.

That said, there's still at least a day and a half a duct work to go ...

The bathroom plumbing was also filled with concrete today:



A form was used on the right where the shower is to go.

Kal

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WTS




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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 1:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well I appauld you Kal for going to the n'th degree on your basement developement. DOn't forget to add a spare string when you're pulling cable through your PVC pipes or whatever you end up using.

About the wiring in the walls and the 2'/3' 2x4, makes sense if they wired before they put up the studs. 7 people working on different things, wow, at that rate you should have this done in no time. I guess you'd better start thinking about what new projector you want to use in place of the retired 1200. Maybe one of the new Laser/LED based LCOS units that are suppose to be coming out this year, Red's new product comes to mind.

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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

WTS wrote:
I guess you'd better start thinking about what new projector you want to use in place of the retired 1200.

See the first post of this thread.

Kal

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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 7:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kal wrote:

> In our case we're trying to even out things and make turn ducts 'architectural features' that frame the room instead of those weird lumps that appear all over the ceilings in most basements. To the eye it should appear that bulkheads exist because they add something to the room, not because they were created to hide duct-work. <

Bravo! That will pay large dividends in satisfaction on a daily basis. Well worth doing it now, while you can do so relatively easily.

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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Tim! We hope so. (Wow - long time no talk it seems too!)

Kal

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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, projector mounts are confusing to research.

What universal projector mount do you guys recommend if I need to drop down about 12" from the ceiling? Something black that can tilt/roll/swivel and provides some up/down adjustment too. Has to be able to support a ~35 lb projector (JVC RS45 or RS55).

Something strong will be put up there between the ceiling joists to allow the mount to be anchored correctly of course.

Peerless seems to make all in one solutions while Chief seems popular but you have to buy the 'mount' separately from the 'interface bracket' and then you have to use a post to somehow affix it to the ceiling with a correct mount? Their website gets a big zero from me in trying to make it easy to understand what I need. (I'm a hands on/visual guy).

Kal

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kal
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PostLink    Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Most of the ductwork has now been relocated (just waiting on a plumber so that some lines can be moved to finish off the HVAC). I'll post some new pictures once it's complete.

Wall framing starts today.

I spent a good 4-5 hours doing something that is probably pretty useless this past weekend: Taping the all of the new ducts with foil tape where the pieces meet to stop air leaks.

One the energy saving features the house builder touts is "Sealed air ducts in basement". All of the ducts that we tore out had been previously sealed. The HVAC guys don't normally do this so I did it. I can see now why they don't normally do this. It's a pain in the arse. Wink

Some will argue that leaky ducts create a number of potential problems such as contributing to the growth of mold and mildew and can also waste energy dollars. Not sure how much of an issue it would be here but I felt for about $40 worth of tape and just a bunch of work on my part that it was worth it. It was a pain to do as in some places they've really put things in tight to get it all to fit.

Of course, with a sealed ceiling/bulkheads that's been stuffed full of insulation, I don't see the energy savings as being as beneficial as before when the ducts were completely exposed. Air is less likely to flow out from cracks in the ducts as the area around the ducts in the ceiling/bulkheads will be filled & closed. I can certainly see the benefit in an unfinished basement.

Kal

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