February 24th, 2009 Rich
It may have seemed like I have been on a long vacation considering the frequency of my posts. However, that has not been the case. I have been putting in 60+ hour work weeks trying to get the studio/sound stage ready for use. I’ll be documenting my work shortly.
Last weekend, I ready put the studio to a real test. I built a living room set and invited my children and their families (and dogs) over for a photo shoot. If there were any problems, this was sure to root them out.
Amazingly, everything went very well. The place didn’t fall down. And I even received several comments as to how warm it was in there. Hallelujah! The insulation and heaters were doing their job.
I still have a long ways to go. I’m planning a studio open house on the first day of spring, Saturday, March 21. I will have a noontime barbecue with hamburgers and hot dogs. I even have some entertainment coming for a house concert. If you are in the neighborhood and would like to come, let me know and I’ll send directions.
– Rich Pulham
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February 2nd, 2009 Rich
I have nearly 1,000 square feet of attic space so this is a major source of heat loss. I’m also near the landing pattern of the jets landing at Salt Lake International airport whenever we have a north wind. This is the prevailing wind pattern and happens more often in the summer.
AttiCat insulation blower loaded by the Owens Corning Panther.
To insulate against heat loss and noise, I chose Owens Corning AttiCat blown-in insulation from Home Depot. When you buy at least 10 bags of insulation, you get the blower free for 24 hours. The blower is out for rental quite a bit in the winter so I devised a plan. I went in Friday at about 5:00. You are supposed to be able to do 1,000 square feet in an hour and a half (maybe if you are experienced at this). I figured if I got the blower at 5:00 on Friday, I should easily have it back by 5:00 the next day. And perhaps no one else would get it before me. People with day jobs don’t usually get off much earlier that that.
The guy at Home Depot thought I was crazy when he found out I didn’t have a truck. I have a car with a hitch and haul a 4 x 8 trailer. I use ratcheting straps to hold everything down and they work great. The top half of the machine fit in the rear seat and my job was much easier.
The guy that helped me load it was still nervous. He kept warning me that they wouldn’t be responsible if anything happened to the blower. He even told me that the replacement cost of the machine was a thousand dollars. I got it strapped down tight along with the two barrels full of a 100 feet of hose. I made it safely home.
The next morning, I had my son-in-law, John, help me. The temperature was in the twenties with a breeze blowing so I put the blower just inside the studio door. That kept me out of the wind. John was in the attic so he was fine.
Actually, John had insulated coveralls and a disposable white jump suit. With the goggles, air mask, big rubber boots with steel shanks, and the blue nitrile gloves, he looked like he was prepared to detox a radioactive waste site. Oh, but that’s what he does for a living.
I was concered about my back loading 15 bags of insulation into the blower. It wasn’t as hard as I figured. The bags are covered with plastic. The insulation tries to expand and stretches the plastic tight. There is a dotted line around the middle of each bag which is cut with a knife. I also used a butcher knife to stab around that cut line. The bales were easier to break in half that way. And they weren’t that heavy so feeding the machine was easy.
When you push the half bales into the machine, a knife catches the plastic and cuts it freeing the insulation. You just push it into the machine and pull out the plastic wrapping. Paddles rotating in opposite directions slowly break apart the bales and fluff them up. Then the insulation is blow though the 100 feet of hose hooked up to the machine. There is a detailed instructional video here at the bottom of the page.
We both had radios for communications. Occasionally, I let him know how many bags were left so he could pace himself. It took about four hours including a lunch break. I had the machine back at Home Depot by 3:00 so there was time to spare.
For R-30 insulation, I needed 15 inches of blow-in (which settles to 12). It looked closer to 24 inches when I checked the job. An attic door was added to complete the project. In the spring, we will be putting in ducting for a swamp cooler to keep the studio from getting too warm. This will give me easy access without having a hole in my ceiling that lets in sound.
– Rich Pulham
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December 29th, 2008 Rich
The LP gas heater has not turned out like I thought it would. I can raise the temperature in the studio 10 or 15 degrees so I usually get it into the low 40′s. This really isn’t enough to use the studio as it was intended. Filmming when you can see someone’s breath is not good.
When I first fired up the heater, I could hear the gas light but it wouldn’t stay on. It took a few tries before I figured out that when you turn it on you need to hold the dial in place for maybe 10 or 20 seconds before letting go. There is a sensor that turns off the gas if there isn’t a flame — kind of like lighting a gas water heater. The printed instructions didn’t say anything about it. Maybe it was on the side of the heater which I didn’t read.
For working in the studio, there is good news. Although the temperature isn’t that high, I can still be comfortable working there. The blower pushes air through the heater to keep it from melting down. That also means you can point it in the direction where you are working and you will feel the heat.
Next, I will be building interior, insulated walls. This should help considerably in heating the place. The concrete block walls soak up the heat almost immediately. They have an R value of 1, the same as a 1 inch air space.
– Rich Pulham
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December 20th, 2008 Rich
The weather in Salt Lake has turned very cold and snowy. And I’ve determined that I need to put up insulated walls both for insulation and sound treatment. However, that requires disconnecting the baseboard heaters and moving them away from the wall. Without heat, it will be difficult to work.
70-100,000 BTU heater
When getting lumber for the walls, I purchased a construction heater that runs on LP gas. At the Home Depot I visited, there was only one left, the smaller 40,000 BTU unit for $100. I bought it just in case I couldn’t find the larger heater somewhere else. And the next store I visited were sold out of both heaters.
While looking for insulation and heaters at a third store, I found them both in stock. The 70-100,000 BTU heater would definitely heat my space. The smaller one was slightly undersized and I wasn’t sure if it was up to the challenge.
The larger heater was $190 ($180 at the first store). It has 3 heat levels and runs for 9 hours on a 40 pound tank. The smaller one runs 11 hours on a 20 pound tank. With those specs, it was an easy decision. I’ll try the small one. I would probably be better off running two small heaters if one was inadequate.
So for now I’m hoping the heat situation is resolved so I can get some work done.
– Rich Pulham
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December 18th, 2008 Rich
I was wondering if having the thermostats over the heaters prevented the room from heating to a higher temperature. I removed the thermostat from a pair of heaters and connected the wires together so it would always be on.
I was correct that it wasn’t reaching maximum heat. But it didn’t make a meaningful difference. The studio was heated to a record 51 degrees — not what you would really call warm.
I cleaned off the snow that fell this morning and covered my trailer so I could get the lumber necessary to frame and insulated the walls.
– Rich Pulham
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