Shack Advice Solicited

[Jim, W5JO]

I am in the final phases of constructing a new shack for all my stuff.  The building is a 12 X 14 structure with a metal roof and siding.  I have installed 8 separate electrical circuits all with 12/3 wire which will give me a separate circuit to each 4 ft. of the 32 inch wide benches, and then put shelves approximately 18 inches above them.

Now my question is what would be a good choice to cover the walls?  I have considered 1/2 inch sheet rock, 1/2 inch plywood covered with carpet and sheet rock covered with a plastic type covering (I don't remember what it is called).  What has been your experience and suggestion?

[W4RON]

Plywood is great for allowing you to put a screw anywhere you want, BUT
I would use sheetrock  for it's fire suppressant qualities.

W4RON

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Peg board is handy in a working environment. numerous hooks and such for tools, and light shelving.  cover the top half of the wall in PB and the lower half in Plywood or paneling.  Durable.

[KF1Z]

If you haven't done so...

I would suggest....

Plenty of mapped out blocking 2Xs in the walls.....
You never have too much shelve space...and the blocking comes in real handy for hanging stuff...

If it's not sheetrocked, it's not covered by any insurance in case of fire.(as far as I know.)

Also, install now any extra pvc through the walls (or floor even) for coax runs, ground wires. etc.

And don't forget the built into the wall secret hiding spot! now's the perfect time for that!!!


I know that's more than what you asked, but............

[WA3VJB]

Carpet !

When we bought this place 20 yrs ago there was one unfinished room downstairs which immediately was tagged as The Radio Room.  I left the wallframes as they were, drilled them for coax, power, control and audio lines, then bought some nice paneling from the floor to the chair rail. No drywall behind it.

Chair rail to the ceiling was carpeted with mill-end sections from the local rug merchant. Spool ends, if you will.  Got the length I needed, 4 feet, and the width was the cut-end of a 10 foot or 12 foot rug.

Behind it was R-11 for thermal and sound insulation. No drywall behind it.That room sounded really good, too.

If you really want to get some sound deadening, get the kind of sheetrock they use in the tub wall area of the bathroom. It's waterproof, yes, so what, but the fire resistant quality is excellent, the additional weight is like dead lead for soundproofing, and you can nail or screw through it for shelving.

Other -- perforated acoustic tile on the ceiling, the little 12in square Armstrong tiles in a metal grid, with R-11 above it between the floor joists. Consider some track lighting, very handy with an RFI supressed dimmer, I had my light heads arrayed to cover the radio wall and the music mixing table on another wall. Transmitter/receiver wall got one of the tracklight heads, and that was plenty.

Take before and  after pictures so you know where you placed your cable runs.

[Jim, W5JO]

Thanks for the advice all.  As an oldie I remember radio stations with plywood walls that had egg crate material nailed all over them.  I actually thought about doing that, but I don't have enough egg crate material.

What I am doing for shelves and benches is putting a 2 X 4 horizontal at the appropriate height and screwing 1 1/4 plywood for the bench top then will cover it with Masonite that is screwed down.  That way I can replace the Masonite as necessary.  The front of the benches will be supported by 4 X 4s legs.

I think I am going to use the plywood covered with carpet for cost sake.  My wife thinks the windfall I have is partly hers so I need to keep costs as low as possible.  I probably am the only person here whose wife bought a $400 dollar mechanics tool chest on wheels to put her pastel sticks in.  And she has designs on other expenses too.

[k4kyv]

I used sheetrock when I re-did a room in the house, but put up 3/8" unfinished plywood first.  The problem with sheetrock nailed directly over bare studs is that it is too easy to knock a hole in it.  I've seen holes in walls where someone in a fit of anger rammed their fist through the sheetrock.  When moving heavy radio stuff it would be too easy to accidentally ram it.  Sheetrock backed up with plywood using a combination of drywall screws and construction adhesive is about as indestructible as old fashioned plaster and wooden lath.

Some of the flimsy new houses they build round here could be broken into with a pocket knife or a strong kick.  They put up the wall studs, nail vinyl siding onto the exterior of the studs and 3/8" drywall to the interior, with nothing more than fibreglass insulation in between. 

[W1UJR]

I think I am going to use the plywood covered with carpet for cost sake.  My wife thinks the windfall I have is partly hers so I need to keep costs as low as possible.  I probably am the only person here whose wife bought a $400 dollar mechanics tool chest on wheels to put her pastel sticks in.  And she has designs on other expenses too.

I like plywood here at W1UJR.
I had it secured with drywall screws it can be removed to run wiring or coax behind, or easily replace when it becomes too marred up!
As someone pointed out, its great to attached items right to, I have my feed-line spacers screwed into the plywood itself.
Sheetrock is pretty, but plywood is practical.

[WA1GFZ]

Don,
Are you kidding? Do they have any building codes down there?
HTF does a house take snow load or better yet a good wind storm.
Man I thought flake board was crap but no board is something else.

[KB2WIG]

FWIW,

Isolating the shack sounds from the house is a very, very important part of operating. Just ask my wife. I've used R-13 insulation and sheetrock to cut back on the noise...

 An interesting method is to construct a shack within a existing structure - Build an room that is isolated from the building strutural members as much as possible. A way to do this is to build 2 walls and a "roofed" room. The inside set of walls supports a ceiling that is not directley connected to the ceiling (or above floor) of the existing structure. If the inside wall is of standard construction (centered on 16"), use R13 insulation as sound absorbing material. The moisture barrier is probably not needed, so make a lot of slashes with a sharp knife in the paper backing The "outside" wall can use bathroom sheetrock, as Paul sugested. (this stuff is usally a form of cocrete and is dense/waterproof.) Its place on the outside of the dual walls,like a a sandwich. Another layer of insulation gets place between the studs. The studs should be stagered so as not to be opposite of each other. This adds a few dB of "quiet". The idea of all this is to not have a solid connection to transmit sound between 'inside' and 'outside'. Ventilation can be tricky, if things are forced air.  Will SS the pwr supply help?.... There are noise reducing coupelings available for the sheetmetal vents. Having the room vent larger than the ductwork reduces the air flow noise a bit. Your power and feedlines will transmit noise, so you may want Two doors, stagered a bit would be nice... I doubt but a few would go to this trouble, but it can be done without a lot of money to be spent.  And, No, I didn't do all of this at home but did much at a colledge radio station............ Next week, mudwork for the turntables.   klc   

[KB5MD]

"I've seen holes in walls where someone in a fit of anger rammed their fist through the sheetrock" K4KYV's post reminds me of a neighbor who one night was going to impress his wife during a fit of anger by knocking a hole in the sheetrock.  The idiot punched the wall hard and as luck would have it, centered a stud. Cracked two bones in his hand.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Or just use QuietRock and skip the rest.

FWIW,

Isolating the shack sounds from the house is a very, very important part of operating. Just ask my wife. I've used R-13 insulation and sheetrock to cut back on the noise...

 An interesting method is to construct a shack within a existing structure - Build an room that is isolated from the building strutural members as much as possible. A way to do this is to build 2 walls and a "roofed" room. The inside set of walls supports a ceiling that is not directley connected to the ceiling (or above floor) of the existing structure. If the inside wall is of standard construction (centered on 16"), use R13 insulation as sound absorbing material. The moisture barrier is probably not needed, so make a lot of slashes with a sharp knife in the paper backing The "outside" wall can use bathroom sheetrock, as Paul sugested. (this stuff is usally a form of cocrete and is dense/waterproof.) Its place on the outside of the dual walls,like a a sandwich. Another layer of insulation gets place between the studs. The studs should be stagered so as not to be opposite of each other. This adds a few dB of "quiet". The idea of all this is to not have a solid connection to transmit sound between 'inside' and 'outside'. Ventilation can be tricky, if things are forced air.  Will SS the pwr supply help?.... There are noise reducing coupelings available for the sheetmetal vents. Having the room vent larger than the ductwork reduces the air flow noise a bit. Your power and feedlines will transmit noise, so you may want Two doors, stagered a bit would be nice... I doubt but a few would go to this trouble, but it can be done without a lot of money to be spent.  And, No, I didn't do all of this at home but did much at a colledge radio station............ Next week, mudwork for the turntables.   klc   

[KB2WIG]

  "   Or just use QuietRock and skip the rest.   "


No Steve,

Man was borne to suffer....  ..    klc

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Well, that's true but you can still use QuietRock. 

http://www.quietsolution.com/html/quietrock.html

[k4kyv]

Don,
Are you kidding? Do they have any building codes down there?
HTF does a house take snow load or better yet a good wind storm.
Man I thought flake board was crap but no board is something else.

A lady I know moved into a brand new house.  Shortly afterwards it needed some work, and they found that the drywall on some of the interior walls had been nailed into place with a power hammer.  They consistently missed studs by about 1/2", and the drywall panels were literally hanging into place by the tape at the joints aided by what few nails that happened to hit solid wood.  The builder supposedly issued a warranty on the house.  She contacted him several times.  He would acknowledge the problem and promised to fix it, but would never show up.  Finally she had to hire a lawyer, and after legal hassles and fees, she had spent just about as much as  she would have spent if she had simply  hired someone to fix it at her own expense.

One problem is that we are near an army base and the community has a highly transient population.  The cheap builders bank on the original occupants being gone by the time problems with their shoddy construction become noticeable. 

A few years ago a house made the news because the builder had constructed it right on top of a sinkhole, and one day about half the house literally fell into a big hole that opened in the ground overnight.  Some loophole in the building code got the builder off the hook and the owner was stuck with the mess on his own.

[Jim, W5JO]

One problem is that we are near an army base and the community has a highly transient population.  The cheap builders bank on the original occupants being gone by the time problems with their shoddy construction become noticeable. 

A few years ago a house made the news because the builder had constructed it right on top of a sinkhole, and one day about half the house literally fell into a big hole that opened in the ground overnight.  Some loophole in the building code got the builder off the hook and the owner was stuck with the mess on his own.
[/quote]

Was he a transit from Oklahoma?

[KB2WIG]

  Steve -- "  Well, that's true but you can still use QuietRock.    "

Well, the stuff 'slooks gud, but the price seems to be ~ $40 a sheet...  wowzers.....  Gots to do smore reasearch on this....... 


  Don -- "  the builder had constructed it right on top of a sinkhole, and one day about half the house literally fell into a big hole that opened in the ground overnight  "         

Yeah, sometimes the construction standards are a little bit lacking.   From my closet of anxieties ( AKA memories),  I was in the crawlspace of a home running some 10/3  to an attached  garage and noticed the cold and hot pluming was garden hose.... then there was the cesspool made up of a metal trashcan with holes punched in it......  klc

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Or you can just whisper. We had a running of the Whisper Net on 3725 kHz tonight.