Renovating a gutted house: what to consider?

[inthered]

On Friday I'm buying a house at auction on the cheap and will (if we get it) use at least part of the space for recording. The house I'm looking at has been more or less ripped apart. It's framed, but the plaster has been removed and we'll be drywalling. We (girlfriend + I, since we're going to live in this house, too) are going to set aside either about 300-400sq ft of the upstairs for recording. There are certainly acoustic considerations, and while we might not float the floor I'll probably build floats for the amps out of foam and plywood. I'm going to forego isolation and try to build pleasant-looking goboes. I'm going to try and wire the house for ethernet (and put a router in the basement) and run 3-conductor wire from the main room to a xlr outlets in the bedrooms and bathroom. I know that I'll want to keep AC wires far apart from anything carrying signal. I'll also try to keep data wires away from audio wires, but I'm not sure that it's as much of a concern.

1. Does anyone have a good supplier for small volumes of panel-mount XLR-F jacks or an XLR-F mounted in something the size of a switchplace?
2. Since I have the rare opportunity of getting to stuff the walls with all sorts of stuff easily (since it's empty framing right now) should I be thinking of anything else? I considered running some wire for headphones or just for sends, but am waffling.
3. I'm going to try and buy a Furman power conditioner. Does anyone know whether they require installation by a licensed electrician? I'm pretty ignorant about them.
4. Should I spend the extra money and have separate lines run for amps and for recording equipment (for example)? I've been told that this is important, but have trouble understanding why there's a benefit to running a separate line when everything's meeting downstairs at the panel.

Any other suggestions? If I don't get this house I'm going to buy a brick duplex out-of-town and use one of the apartments as a dedicated studio, but it's got plaster walls and I'd probably just run everything in conduit outside the wall.

Thank you.

[The Gibbon]

Get a reputable electrician in to evaluate the service in the house..might be a good idea to add some circuits to handle the load so you don't blow a circuit when you are up and running and someone makes popcorn in the microwave.....also check out the grounding situation real well...use a star ground....a good electrician will know what that means(everything has one path to ground) in your studio to avoid 60 cycle hum. There are so many things to think about like staggered studs and floating floors but be sure that your electrical set up is good first and take it from there.

[black ark]

Get a reputable electrician in to evaluate the service in the house..might be a good idea to add some circuits to handle the load

i second this. that furman power conditioner supposedly (Mr. Hong?) needs a 20 amp circuit and you may not have one running to the upstairs or at all... unless you've done this before, get an electrician to do this.

Since I have the rare opportunity of getting to stuff the walls with all sorts of stuff easily (since it's empty framing right now) should I be thinking of anything else? I considered running some wire for headphones or just for sends, but am waffling.

don't drill TOO many holes through your studs if the wall is a bearing wall (one that supports the weight of the floor or roof above i.e. all outside walls are bearing walls...) you don't want to weaken them too much. space out your holes carefully.

Any other suggestions? If I don't get this house I'm going to buy a brick duplex out-of-town and use one of the apartments as a dedicated studio, but it's got plaster walls and I'd probably just run everything in conduit outside the wall.

you can "fish" wires through small holes in the plaster with a "fish tape" it's a lot like a tape measure only with skinny tape and more of it. electricians use it to pull wires through finished walls (absolutely an art to it..)

sounds cool!

-paul m

[goldstar]

red

check Markertek (www.markertek.com) for jacks, cable, etc. for this. I'd agree about the electrician suggestion, too.

If you haven't already done it, pick up EA Everest's "Build a Small Budget Rec. Studio from Scratch" and maybe Phil Newell's "Project Studios" for lots of info you can use. The Acoustics and Studio Construction forum at www.recording.org is probably worth your time to look at, too.

Good luck, most aren't lucky enough to have a bare shell to work with.

Frank

[Bear's Gone Fission]

John Sayers also has a build/acoustics forum area linked to his website.

Bear

[hulahalau]

Vendors: Hudson Audio Video (www.haveinc.com), markertek (www.markertek.com), Mouser (www.mouser.com).

Don't even have an electrician give you advice; you WILL need more than 1 20 amp circuit into your studio. Be sure they all have ground lines bonded to the bus bar, and that the bus bar is bonded to a THICK copper wire to an outside ground-copper grounding stake. Make sure each circuit runs from the same 120 V side, and that the breakers for each circuit are adjacent to each other.

Be sure to put a good roof on your house!

HVAC: Locate the fan coil as far away from the studio while still being on a straight run, and then add an isolationcollar from the fan coil unit to the duct (in the old days, a collar was made of canvas. you may want to use a multiple layer assembly of waterproofed nylon).

Go to your nearest full-service library and obtain the books written by F. Alton Everest on acoustics and studio design.

Be sure to include weatherstripping around doors leading to the studio (including a sweep and a bulb) if you can't afford a real isolation door. Or use two doors with a small space between.

[xonlocust]

congrats on the house - i just bought an old house last month and have been in renovation hell. i plan on putting the studio upstairs in the old attic. the major issues i've come against which may or may not apply to you, but are worth looking into are:

1. what are the floor joists in the upper level - where your studio will be, be like? in my house, i have 2x6s over 14ft spans. this was to code for an attic space (as it was initially built) though studio building plans and actual LIVING space require better support. make sure you don't have this problem. my plans are now delayed by having to replace all the floor joists in the house to 2x10s. think of the implications of all the heavy gear up there. in chicago - the code is that your structure needs to support 40 lbs/sq ft. currently in my place - when someone is walking in the attic area, you can actually see the deflection in the ceiling downstairs. these are all things noone brought up during the purchase of my house, despite everyone (inspectors and agents) knowing my intentions for the space. is your upstairs an old living space? then you probably don't have to worry about what i do.

2. what are the roof trusses like? again, in old houses in the olden days - or at least around here - it was common to use 2x4s to hold up the roof. if you're planning on doing any proper soundproofing by hanging double layer drywall, etc - those 2x4s wont hold the added weight. i have to replace all of mine to 2x6s and replace the tie pieces as well.

now, these are all kind of things particular to my house, and i wouldn't HAVE to do them per se - but if you're going to the trouble of building out your new home - what happens 5 yrs from now when you sell? of the work you do - especially considering you're not going for "full blown" isolation and whatnot - think about the livability for future owners. maybe you'll make a control room that future owners could have as a guest room - and build a sound lock hallway, then have your live room be a huge - open - almost loft style master bedroom.

by the way - thank god you don't have to be repairing plaster. that's all i've been doing the last 3 weeks. that and removing 5 layers of wallpaper and pulling out shitty old drop ceilings and wood paneling. sanding plaster sucks. actually, everything about plaster sucks.

but really though - you're gonna get it checked out by an inspector right? owning a home is such more of a pain in the ass than i ever expected - for example, 5 hrs into being a homeowner, i had to pay $500 to fix gas leaks in the place. you'd think the gas company does that - oh no - they only fix it for free if it's really fucking obvious and right in front of them. turns out i had 7 throughout the system.

i'd be wary of the auction thing - but even so -whatever you do, allot yourself enough $ for shit that you don't expect, because it will happen, and there will be no landlord to bitch to.

caveat - this is all the stuff other people tried to tell me, and i ignored them, and they were right also. best of luck though!! it is pretty awesome to do whatever you want to your own place though. i got to karate kick walls in. that was pretty cool. and when my studio is up and running, it'll be really cool too.

-nick

[inthered]

Yowsa. Thank you for awesome responses. A few details here:

We're applying for a HUD 203k mortgage, which has some advantages:
- the loan includes a minimum of $5000 in renovations for required stuff like energy improvements (we're going to superinsulate, use tankless water heaters, get an attic fan, replace the furnace and put in central air, etc.). After that, you can borrow $10000 to put in rosebushes if that's what turns you on. I'm going to see whether the power conditioner can be included and, if not, I'll pay for it out of pocket.
- money for repairs is put into escrow and drawn out by a HUD inspector. This means that contractors don't get paid unless the completed work is approved by the inspector. However, the money is guaranteed by HUD, so there are contractors willing to work under those restrictions.
- all repairs have to be completed within 6 months of approval and the beginning of the loan. This could be a disadvantage, but I like that I won't spend years gradually fixing the place up. It'll all happen pretty fast.

As suggested, I'll try to either add a 20-amp circuit or convert most of the circuits from 10/15 to 20-amp if we walk into the place and see a bunch of fuses and old wiring. The original owner intimated that he'd replaced all the wiring in the house about a year ago. I'm not gonna do electric myself; I can do some plumbing, I can hang drywall poorly, tile, paint, etc., but I like to leave deadlier stuff to professionals.

I also figured out that, for what I'm doing, doing long cable runs might be better than wiring rooms with xlr panels. For example, I don't to sell the house and explain to every person who visits "oh yeah, those are for plugging in microphones...","that's for headphones, but you need to put the stereo..."

We're putting the studio space in the 2nd floor and our daughter will have the entire attic. She's 4, so she can make a huge mess in the attic and there will be enough room left to put a plate reverb in there. I'm pretty sure the joists on the 2nd floor are either 2x8 and good timber or are 2x10. I hadn't thought about the load, though. I plan to have a couple really heavy tube amps upstairs plus a rack full of stuff and should figure out whether the floors will hold (they're wood floors, but they're getting refinished and that'll take a millimeter or two off of them.

We're not replastering, but if we don't get this house I'm going to seek a really cheap brick double that's all plaster. I think we'll probably leave most of it as-is and run new wiring in conduit outside the wall.

For the HVAC, I'm going to plan (as suggested) to make a flexible collar. Or, does anyone know whether you can just buy one?

I've got the Everest book that was mentioned and it's very good.

The auction is scary, but I've been inside the house a couple times and have a pretty good sense of the things that are obviously wrong. If it turns out that the house has got deadly mold or is going to explode in a couple months, we'll probably turn around and sell it for the lot, which would make us a small profit. I'd rather have a home and a home studio, tho.

Thank you for excellent suggestions.

[EasyGo]

We're applying for a HUD 203k mortgage

Saw the term 203k and had to chime in.

In my experience with the 203k, the 'HUD' inspector and contractor were in cahoots with one another. The 'inspector' showed us the 'approved list of contractors,' badmouthing all on the list except his buddy.

In actuality, the inspector was a self-motivated businessman, approved by HUD to do 203k inspections. The contractor was a crooked street thug with a convincing smile who was ill equipped to perform the renovations. In short, we got ripped off big time, both in the job, and the accompanying inside-job burglary. When we complained to HUD, we heard nothing. A year and a half later, HUD wrote us to say they had received the complaint. As far as I know, both the 'inspector' and 'contractor' are still 'at large.'

203k in and of itself is a great program. But if necessary, you can be your own general contractor, hiring out individual jobs as necessary to avoid the horrors of a bad general contractor. You just have to get the desired contractors to go along with the way the money's paid.

I don't mean to alarm you, but make sure you get legit referrals for any contractor you let in your home. Period.

[jajjguy]

Regarding power conditioning, I don't know exactly what the Furman does, but in my experience the important thing is VOLTAGE REGULATION. That means that when the power temporarily dips below proper voltage, the device kicks in and supplements power for a little while. This is totally different from the other main thing that power devices do which is SURGE PROTECTION. Surge protection is easy, voltage regulation requires a big clunky box with batteries inside. Dips in power are hell on computers (or anything with a computer in it).

[cgarges]

1. Does anyone have a good supplier for small volumes of panel-mount XLR-F jacks or an XLR-F mounted in something the size of a switchplace?

Try www.audiogear.com for the best prives I've found on connectors.

2. Since I have the rare opportunity of getting to stuff the walls with all sorts of stuff easily (since it's empty framing right now) should I be thinking of anything else? I considered running some wire for headphones or just for sends, but am waffling.
4. Should I spend the extra money and have separate lines run for amps and for recording equipment (for example)? I've been told that this is important, but have trouble understanding why there's a benefit to running a separate line when everything's meeting downstairs at the panel.

I'd say run anything you think you might want, and then some. This can get expensive if you're talking about doing the whole house, but you'll be so glad you did. I mean, be realistic about it. You don't necessarily need to run enough lines to mic a 14-piece drum kit in the bathroom, but plan ahead. Way ahead. You never know what will come in handy and you won't be sorry.

One thing I would do is wire some pass-throughs from room to room. A pair of balanced lines, for headphones or whatever, a pair of instrument lines, and a pair of speaker wire for putting instruments or amp heads in one room and speakers in another. If you have any plans to record bands, this will come in very handy.

I also can't say enough good things about the Auralex GRAMMAS for amps. They do exactly what they're supposed to and aren't much more expensive than they would cost to build, time being a consideration.

Congratulations and good luck!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC