securing my BIG garage door: build wall or no?

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rjd2
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securing my BIG garage door: build wall or no?

Post by rjd2 » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:20 am

hi folks, i have a question here:

i have a garage that i want to use for more recording. i currently have things set up there, and i have it treated well enough to sound decent, but there isnt enough barrier at the door for both heating and sound purposes. it has an original accordian-style door that is roughly 20 feet long and 8 feet high. here are my options, as i see it:

1-frame out a wall that would sit JUST inside the accordian door, with a normal door. there is enough space in the door threshold to do this fairly easily. this would definitely solve the problem, however, it permanently prevents moving anything large into or out of the space.

2-hanging some kind of semi-permanent heavy curtain or wall of some sort instead of framing the wall? i dont really know if there are alternatives out there that could be removed if need be. are there? this would have the advantage that of utility, in regards to using the door.

is this making sense? thoughts? should i bite the bullet and build the wall? the accordian door is not really practical to use as a garage door, so i dont see myself using the garage to store a car anytime in the foreseeable future, but a wall is rather permanent, after all. thanks for the advice and/or ideas of alternative builds.

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Post by chris harris » Tue Dec 04, 2012 9:07 am

The curtain won't really help much for what you're wanting. The wall is definitely your best bet for keeping the heat and (more of) the sound inside. Just put a 36" door in your wall and you should still be able to get most gear through the door. Plenty of studios without garage door access are still able to get gear through their doors.

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Gregg Juke
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Post by Gregg Juke » Tue Dec 04, 2012 9:12 am

>>>>1-frame out a wall that would sit JUST inside the accordian door, with a normal door. there is enough space in the door threshold to do this fairly easily. this would definitely solve the problem, however, it permanently prevents moving anything large into or out of the space.<<<<

Yeah, I agree with Chris. This is the best way and if you get a bit of an oversized door, no probelms moving things in and out (I mean, it should be big enough for a bass drum or a Leslie, but not a car, right?). This is waht we did with a garage once-- a room-within-a-room, including the door-within-a-door concept. Worked great, and gives you a little added security.

GJ

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GIK Acoustics
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Post by GIK Acoustics » Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:25 pm

I would certainly go with your first option. No curtain would be thick/heavy enough to work for either of the purposes. You could still get a large door so you're able to move larger items in and out of the space.
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roygbiv
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Post by roygbiv » Sun Jan 27, 2013 7:40 pm

yeah, and I think leaving the original accordion door on the outside would also have the added benefit of distracting would-be burglars, i.e., "nothing to see here, just a normal ol' garage, not a transformed building full of tasty, easily hawked musical equipment".

Or that's what I would think, anyway, were I a burglar. However, having never burgled, this is only supposition on my part.
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Marc Alan Goodman
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Post by Marc Alan Goodman » Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:02 am

the wall is definitely the way to go. Plus, as anybody who's ever built a wall can tell you, they're not permanent. If it ever needs to become a plain old garage again the plain old garage door will still be there.

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Post by ducharme » Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:20 am

I did just what you're thinking about. We put up a wall just inside the bi-fold doors (this is an old 50's house and the structure is basically a single car garage 15x20). Insulated, painted and then I hung a black curtain the length of the wall. I closed and lock the bi-folds so from the outside it looks like a regular garage.
There is also a regular sized back door entrance.

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