[Mr Bump]

Work has begun on my new HT. The one in my sig is no more - that was the second bedroom at my old house. I have now moved and am the proud owner of a big detached double garage. I am also the proud owner of a wife who not only agreed to have said garage converted into a HT, but is helping to finance it!

Plan is to have a lobby when coming in from the outside, off which there will be a door to a store room to keep our bikes, paint tools etc and a door into the cinema. In the room itself there will then be a cupboard (at the back of the store area, but accessed from within the cinema) for storage of DVDs, games etc. Garage door is to remain in place (would look stupid from the outside otherwise IMO), but fully sealed and with plenty of soundproof insulation behind it. There is also going to be a vent below the screen and a vent in the ceiling leading to a centrifugal fan in the loft space, designed to stop the room from becoming too hot in the summer. Here's some pics of how things have come along:

Floor going into place. Concrete floor wasn't very level, so required some jigging to get it flat.

Extra insulation between the roof joists - I really want to keep the temp down in the summer, seeing as it is a single storey building.

Studding for the internal wall going up

That will be the wall with the screen.

DVD store on the right there.

And that's about it. The garage was already alarmed, so don't need to worry about that. Will need to replace the current crappy entrance door though.
Kit will be pretty much the same as the last room, except I have ordered a 7' wide Draper fixed frame screen and a pair of B&W 600 S3s to be the rear surrounds.

[Johnny Thunder]

Very nice job.........keep us up to date please...

Johnny.

[johnscarlet]

Originally Posted by little blue round man with bandage on head

I am also the proud owner of a wife who not only agreed to have said garage converted into a HT, but is helping to finance it!

Exellent idea , pimp the wife to convert garage.Wonder how much mine could earn
JS
ps she does know that HT is not Hair and Tan

[gaz]

looking good man whats going in the lobby? popcorn machine, arcade machine, perhaps a ticket booth? sounds too sweet for words
what size is the cinema going to be when its finished?

[garyc]

looks very good

what insulation you using in the walls?

[Mr Bump]

ps she does know that HT is not Hair and Tan

Hehe, might have failed to mention that!

looking good man whats going in the lobby? popcorn machine, arcade machine, perhaps a ticket booth? sounds too sweet for words
what size is the cinema going to be when its finished?

Well, the Kill Bill poster from the old room (check the link in my sig) is going in there, plus some coat hooks and a shoe rack (although the door is only 1 and a half meters from the kitchen back door, so coats probably won't be used much!) and I have bought a 'This Theater Features DTS ES' plaque from www.designbybond.se (which has arrived and is awesome!) to go on the internal door leading into the HT, but that is about it - there won't really be room for much else, seeing as there will be 3 doors leading off it. Final room dimensions will be about 16' by 11'

what insulation you using in the walls?

Just standard stuff on the three solid walls (but with two layers of plasterboard over it) and some kind of acoustic insulation for the wall where the garage door is - not sure what it was called, but it was green and even worse on the lungs than normal stuff!

[Mr Bump]

Acoustic insulation now in place.

PJ mount built into the loft space.

Speaker and video cable set into the wall.

Nice work Mr Bump

I'll be following your progress with interest. Keep it up.

Hatch

[Mr Bump]

Plasterboarding finished:

[Baloo]

Are you doing it or do you have the builders in?

[Johnny Thunder]

It's all coming together nicely. Bet you are getting a hard on now..........
Very good job mate.

[Mr Bump]

Yeah, not long now before I can let my PJ loose after all that time in a box!

I have a builder (singular) in - I can do a bit of DIY, but this sort of thing is way beyond my ability.

[Baloo]

Another question for you as I'm just about to start my single garage conversion. Did you damp proof the walls and floor at all. A builder I had in recommended that the inside walls be rendered with a water proofer first but I was thinking this was a bit of overkill. He also suggested 'tanking' the floor to stop any rising damn although, as he said, there is no evidence of it.

[Mr Bump]

The garage did have a damp proof membrane already in place (you can tell if there are black bricks at the bottom of the walls), but I had another sheet put in as well - check out the very first photo and you can see it. There was also slight evidence of damp in that right hand corner, so we had the damp proof sheet run right up to the ceiling, just in case (it was also run to the left of the corner once the shelves were removed). Waterproof render on all the walls sounds a bit OTT to me though... Unless you have dodgy guttering or an amazon rainforest growing up the outside, just how much damp does he think will get through? However, if you do have a flowerbed or some other kind of plantlife right outside one of the walls, that may be why he suggested it....

[garyc]

Hi

most modern constructed garages do not have a dpm under the slab. So like Mr Bump said it would be best to either paint the existing garage floor with a liquid dpm or use a membrane sheet. Fully rendering the inside of the garage wall is i would agree a little over the top, the amount of water driving through the bricks is not going to be that excessive unless you are in a very severe exposure location.

Basically all that should be required is to build your internal stud frame away from you brickwork inner face, insulate between then use vapour check plasterboard(foil backed). One of big concerns with this type of construction is trapping moisture within the wall zone, so any kind of vapour check needs to be the warm side of the insulation ie, between the plasterboard and insulation.

Hope you don't mind me adding me input

Gary

[Baloo]

Thanks for the info, I need all the help I can get now I've decided to do it on my own.

Would it be overkill to line the entire inside with the damp proof membrane, floor to ceiling, as its relitively cheap stuff or would I be wasting my money?

I'll start my own thread this weekend with before pictures to save cluttering this one up.

[garyc]

u could membrane the walls, instead of foil backed plasterboard and it would save you some cash, just make sure you put it in the right location (the room side of the studs)

look forward to seeing your progress

Gary

I had a builder in and he put down a damp proof barrier (just a thick pvc sheet) on the floor and up the walls to just above the garage's damp proof brick course (the one topped with the black strip). Insulation was put down and then a concrete skim. Insulated stud walls were placed inside the outer brickwork leaving around a 4" air gap to stop any damp from penetrating.

The other this I had done prior to this was to actually get him to build a concrete block wall about a foot behind the garage doors to help with keeping the sound in. The gap between this wall and the RSJ over the garage doors was boarded over at ceiling height and insulated along with the loft. I didn't want passers noticing 'strange noises' coming from what they think is still just a garage.

Pictures are available on my site if you're interested. A link is in the sig below.

Cheers,

Hatch

Originally Posted by Baloo

Would it be overkill to line the entire inside with the damp proof membrane, floor to ceiling, as its relitively cheap stuff or would I be wasting my money?

I'd be careful with this as condensation build up in between the walls could become a problem.

[Baloo]

Originally Posted by hatcher

Pictures are available on my site if you're interested. A link is in the sig below.

Your HC has the exact look that I'm after. As mine has to be a functional room aswell as a HC, I'll be using the same colour scheme as you have used, which, incidently is the same colour scheme as the rest of our house.

Just a quick question or two, (maybe I'm getting paranoid about this damp proof) whats the orange paint like stuff you have on your walls. Is it just paint or some kind of treatment?

Also would foil backed plasterboard instead of the membrane be better for reducing the condensation?

Hi Baloo,

It's just some Dulux external masonary paint and it's only on two of my walls because of an earlier 'part' conversion - long story. Short version - it's unnecessary.

In the end I just used normal plasterboard as the celotex insulation has foil on both sides (it also had the advantage of fitting in tightly and not falling out into the air gap behind). If I was going to use a fibre insulation then I'd use a breathable membrane and fix it to the back of the studwork first then insulate and again just use normal plasterboard. Also I have seen insulation (Wickes) that comes as dense slabs that have a water repelent coating so they could be an option.

As long as you leave a gap between the walls any moisture that forms on the inside of the outer wall will evaporate before it causes any trouble.

Damp can only rise up to the level of the damp course (unless your ground level outside is above this) so as long as you put a damp proof membrane under the floor - whether it be poured or timber - and bring it up the sides to above the dpc you will be fine there also.

Hope the build goes well. Any further questions just post them up.

Cheers,

Hatch

[Baloo]

Thanks for all your help Hatch. Cleared that up a treat

[garyc]

Hi Baloo,

If cost is one of your main concerns - 'celotex' is well known for being good stuff but like with most things it comes at a price!!

Gary

PS. foil backed plasterboard is approx. £1 more a m2 than normal

[Mr Bump]

Some further progress:

Doors and plugs going on.

DVD store

Lobby

Room from the other end.

[Baloo]

Looking good. Looks like most of the hard work has been done

[Kenny Glasgow]

Great inspiration Mr.Bump as I plan to do likewise

[Mr Bump]

Nearly there now. Just the carpet to go. Yes, carpet for the walls and ceiling too - only very thin stuff though and pukka stuff on the floor! Now to just get the man to come and fit it.......

Anyway....

Entrance lobby. Will have vinal tiles on the floor, seeing as it is in from the outside.

Entrance into the room itself

Lights now fitted, but not fully pushed in to place.

DVD cupboard now fully stocked.

Not long now. As soon as the carpet guy has been, I can start moving speakers and other equipment in - and put my spanking new Draper Onyx screen together!

[Mr Bump]

Carpet man been, done the walls and ceiling - looks better than I could have ever hoped - floor on Monday. I've also put down the floor in the lobby and store room, plus fixed up my Kill Bill poster in the lobby and fixed the DTS plaque to the door into the room itself. There was a sudden last minute change of mind as to the carpet colour, so the edging around the doors and the fan in the ceiling now need to be painted, so they blend in better.

Floor tiles now down.

www.designbybond.se is a wonderful place!

Why hello there Uma!

Like I said, door edging will be sorted to blend in.

It's all coming together now! I can almost feel the movie watching goodness!!

[inzaman]

I can almost feel the movie watching goodness!!

Wait until you are in, it will be amazing, looks very good.

Now if there is one room that will absorb the light this is it

[geeWcee]

Looks fantastic Mr Bump! The carpet fitter has done a stirling job.
Looking forward to seeing it finished...

[Adrenochrome]

Where did you get the carpet from?

I Have spent most of today trying to find a self coloured black carpet but have had no luck