How narrow is too Narrow?

[dufo]

Working at the preliminary stage of planning, Im trying to divide my available space within the normal practicalities. Still too early for details at this stage. But I am wondering...

I am going to have a width available of 9.3 ft (2830mm) INNER shell. I also definately want to do soffit mount (Quested H108's with front port).

Is the width enough to properly implement a soffit?

Enough to have a hope of a decent acoustic space, with careful and very judicious treatment?

Other dimensions are a ceiling of 7.3ft (again a inner dimension ) and a width yet to be determined up to approx. 19ft.
thanks alot as always.

[Soundman2020]

I am going to have a width available of 9.3 ft (2830mm) INNER shell. I also definately want to do soffit mount (Quested H108's with front port).

Is the width enough to properly implement a soffit?

Enough to have a hope of a decent acoustic space, with careful and very judicious treatment?

How wide is a shipping container? I'm not sure, but it has to be somewhere around that size. If John can build Spark One in a container with soffits, then I don't see why you souldn't be able to do the same!.

Other dimensions are a ceiling of 7.3ft (again a inner dimension )

That's pretty low. Any chance of increasing that?


- Stuart -

[dufo]

I don't think I can...unless...

The ceiling actually measures 7ft 11 inches from the bottom of the floor. I was originally going to go with a completely soft ceiling. Then I was concerned about putting all that effort into the walls and having a weak ceiling isolation wise. The ceiling is 19mm floorboard, with approx another 20ft to the roof of the metal garage.

But...

7ft 3 inches is low and now you have me thinking. The garage is completely isolated from any other structure and 20 - 25 meters away from neighbours houses. Maybe (seeing Im not recording drums) a soft ceiling and the one layer of 19mm roofing might be enough. However, I dont really want to do it if its going to completely undo all the work that goes into the four walls. Given the space, the walls and ceiling cannot be fully decoupled anyway , and Ill have to use I use RC or the like to squeeze as much isolation out of this as I can.

Or,

Perhaps somehow I could construct a half inch air gap between the joists insulated with another couple of layers of drywall inbetween. This would be tricky and alot of work. That would give still give me 4 inches for treatment using a soft ceiling and result in a height of 7.9ft or so.

[Soundman2020]

Are you saying that the BOTTOMS of your joists are at 7' 11" above the floor? If so, then with RC you'd only lose a couple of inches from that (depending on how many layers of drywall you use). It wouldn't get down to anywhere near 7'3".

Or are you saying that the TOPS of your joists (and therefore the lower surface of the sub-floor) are at 7'11"? In that case, what size are your joists?


- Stuart -

[dufo]

Sorry for being unclear. The height to the top of the joists,or the subfloor above as you put it,is 7ft 11. By the way the subfloor is only 19mm yellow tongue flooring with about 20ft of air above it to the actual garage roof. I'm thinking of adding one or two layers of drywall in between each joist mounted on whisper clips. The clips are because even with double framing there will be a little unavoidable hard connection between the frames. The joists are 6 inch steel, so with the clips and drywall I would still have enough room for about 4 inches of rockwool all over the ceiling and a finished height to be bottom of the joists of 7.5ft. Hope that is a bit clearer.

[Soundman2020]

I'm thinking of adding one or two layers of drywall in between each joist mounted on whisper clips.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning on how that would help: It would not decouple, and would do very little (if anything) for isolation. The joists would still be in the room, and each one would be a penetration of your isolation.

In order to isolate, you have to hang an entirely new and decoupled ceiling a little below the bottom of the existing joists, properly decoupled. If you do it right, you could end up with a finish ceiling height of maybe 7 feet, depending on how much isolation you need.


- Stuart -