Building home!

[Mpsafranski]

Hey all been away a while.
Wife and I just got an accepted offer on some land and building should commence in the next couple/few months.

onto the question of import: depending on final site improvement costs I *should* be able to get a 14x19x8 (paid extra to get the basement raised to 9’ to have 8’ finished ceilings down there).

I plan to ask them to use staggered studs and get insulation plus some MLV before they drywall. Money will be tight so doubtful I will get into treatments/equipment/furniture until down the road. I also think I’ll have them run the wires from the great room down to the basement so I will end up with one shared space for the HT and the great room equipment.

anyone else have experience with asking the builder to frame out a HT room in the basement during construction? Any pitfalls/tips you learned? Do those dimensions sound right for a 100-120” screen?
At this point I should probably be focusing on other things like where the house will be positioned on the land, how deep the well needs to be etc etc but all I can think of is finally having a dedicated theater room

Lots more to consider as well down the road with the great room surround system but starting here since I can’t stop thinking about it hahaha

hope everyone is well,

Mark

 

[BMXTRIX]

I would probably leave the theater space unfinished up front and just frame it myself. It's a few hundred bucks for a compressor and a nail gun then it only takes a day or so with friends to get it all put together... exactly the way you want. You do have to deal with some other things, but builders are just f'n clueless when it comes to audio/video setup in a home.

You will want conduit between your equipment location and the family room TV location.

Not sure if you are doing any surround sound in the family room or extra speakers throughout the home, but please come back and ask about stuff like that.
Building a home, you do need to focus on the big stuff, but you also only get this one rare chance to wire the home, and you should really think about where and how much wiring you would like to get in place now. It can be awesome. Wire for the future, even if you can't buy that equipment yet.

Come back and ask questions.

For a dedicated theater, please keep in mind that front projection demands 10" to 12" of diagonal for each foot of seating distance. IMO, I might put the screen on the 19' wide wall instead of the 14' wide wall. If I did put it on the 14' wide wall, then I would likely go to 150" for the screen size and do an AT screen on a false wall and put a false wall a couple of feet into the room with speakers behind it.

 

[Mpsafranski]

I do plan to have 5.4.1 in the great room with in walls for surrounds. Will likely be going all Monitor Audio controlled performance line as they all have back boxes standard.
The builder has an AV contractor they use but I also found a THX certified installer nearby who’s already quoted me for installing the upstairs system, so I’ll go with them if I don’t like the folks the builder uses.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I do plan to have 5.4.1 in the great room with in walls for surrounds. Will likely be going all Monitor Audio controlled performance line as they all have back boxes standard.
The builder has an AV contractor they use but I also found a THX certified installer nearby who’s already quoted me for installing the upstairs system, so I’ll go with them if I don’t like the folks the builder uses.

I think you mean 5.1.4 which is a great choice.
I would usually avoid a contractors AV guy since many times they source the cheapest high margin stuff they can.

 

[Laro]

Mark,
I'm new on this forum as of today and not one to give advice on your question, but there is one thing I would like to mention to you. Not sure where you are building your home, or if your foundation has already been poured, but I am a retired residential designer and would like to share a little money saving trick that may or may not be useful to you. Obviously a 9' concrete pour is more expensive than an 8' because the basement must be dug deeper if you want only 8" of foundation showing out of finished grade and more concrete and rebars are used, but like you said, an 8' pour will not give you an 8' ceiling. But, here is the trick to gain more height without a huge expense. Triple the 2x4 or 2x6 top plate on the top of your foundation in lieu of one where the joists rest and drop the 4" concrete floor down 1" so that only 3" of the floor rests over the footing . . . that adds 4" to the typical 7'9" ceiling height giving you 8'-1" and a tad more than 8'-0" finished after the 1/2" ceiling drywall is applied. Of course if money is no object, just go with the 9' pour. It might be interesting though to see how much you could save using this little trick. Good luck!

Laro

 

[Mpsafranski]

Thanks for that, all advice is welcome. There’s some new thing we learn every day, and a thousand little decisions. Best thing about building is getting to make all the choices. Worst part is having to make all the choices haha.

The additional 1’ pour actually “only” cost 4.6k extra. Not cheap but in the scheme of things I thought very reasonable.

I did get a quote from a well regarded and thx certified installer and they said with equipment pretty much basement price is 40k for a dedicated theater room. I’d be fine having the room built and wired and holding off on furniture and equipment and get that stuff piece by piece later. Worst thing I can think of is doing it on the cheap and not enjoying it though so it’ll probably be a future goal.

 

[Laro]

I agree with you, if its worth doing, its worth doing right! That said, I doubt my suggestion of the triple plate would even cost $600 more, so that would be an extra $4000+ you could apply to your home theater or other nicety to your home and less space in the basement to heat and cool! Just saying!

 

[Laro]

Oh, and two steps less on your basement stairs!

 

[Mpsafranski]

I think you mean 5.1.4 which is a great choice.
I would usually avoid a contractors AV guy since many times they source the cheapest high margin stuff they can.

yea the builder assured me that “these guys are great, they do AV for bars and clubs” or something like that. So yeah, sorry, but the thx pro is going to get the atmos in the living room job. At least he will understand where I’m trying to go with it.

 

[TLS Guy]

yea the builder assured me that “these guys are great, they do AV for bars and clubs” or something like that. So yeah, sorry, but the thx pro is going to get the atmos in the living room job. At least he will understand where I’m trying to go with it.

Don't trust anything a builder says. Do you own homework.

I have now built and framed in two AV home theaters now. The first in the remodel of our Lake home on Benedict Lake in 2005 and in our new home that as built during most of 2019.

Your room is identical in size to the one I did on Benedict Lake shown below.

The new theater is a bit bigger all the way round, with 9' ceilings, and has room for three rows of seats.

This is a link to the build thread. This includes the great room and family room systems as well.

If you want this to be a success, you need to be heavily involved yourself during the whole construction.

If possible try and build it so you can get behind the equipment.

The whole process starts with carefully drawn up plans, including detailed drawings.

Make sure ALL AV cables go in conduit. Never just run any AV cable in wall not in conduit. If you break that rule you will regret it.

I think it is a good idea to make the AV room also the hub of your home ethernet architecture.

You will need to work closely with your electrician. Plan the ground plane of the whole home and integrate it your AV equipment plans.

For light dimmers use Lutron Maestros as these have the least RF generation. Keep dimmers on their own circuits, and do not interconnect them. Our electrician did put a couple on the same circuit, the family room and the stair lighting dimmers, and it made a Hell of a racket, until we got them separated.

Those all all the tips I can think of right now. But I did document my new home build extensively.

 

[Kingnoob]

Conventional speakers will crush most in walls , you gotta decide tv or projector firsthand.
Do a lot of research on av builds and stuff .

 

[Mpsafranski]

Thanks for that invaluable info @TLS Guy I’ve got a notebook section for each stage/contractor and this is going in the electrical section. 3 cat 5 come standard which is hilarious because I want 3 in the great room alone.
As far as doing it on my own I am definitely not handy but have a friend who’s a damn good carpenter, and I would like to be heavily involved for details not to mention pride so I’ll help out under strict supervision.
@Kingnoob in walls for great room surround only. WAF...she’s accepted the fact that we will still be looking at the front 3 and I’m not pushing it any more than that. It’d be nice to be able to do something like this: