Advice, HT in garage (1 Viewer)

[Donny_B]

Hello all, I plan on buliding a 1 story house soon with a 3 car garage. Usually the third car stall has its own door. I would like to know what you guys and gals think about making a HT out of it. What are some of the Considerations? Has anyone done this before? Thanks in advance. DB

 

[MikeWh]

Hi, Donny. My 2 cents:

Are you saying that you're planning on using the space that would have been a third-car space, but making it a completely enclosed and climate-controlled HT (and without the "usual" garage door that it would normally have)? If that's the case, here are my concerns:

The secondary uses of a garage (corrosive chemical storage, for example) would be a problem for me. More importantly, I use my garage for wood working. Dust issues would QUICKLY rule out placing an HT adjacent to this area.

Other concerns: I'd hate to walk through a garage to get to my HT. Likewise, if it were on the other side, I'd hate to walk through my HT every time I went in and out of the garage.

There IS one advantage to placing an HT on the "outside" edge of the garage space-- isolated sounds from the rest of the house (if that's an issue). I personally don't care about the transmission to the rest of the house, so I'd weigh both the "walking through the garage" and the "dust/smell issues" to be more negative than the "sound isolation" being positive. But that's a personal choice. And don't ask why my garage smells.

 

[Donny_B]

Thanks Mike, I want to wall it off with the only entrance from the house or the garage (I don't mind)depending on the floor plan and of course money. I plan on keeping my garage immaculant. I care less about the sound escaping
I just want a place where I can go to watch TV and DVD's in peace. I have two teenage boys, one eight year old, and a wife.
I just want the builders to put up the wall and ventilate it. I'll do the rest because I wnat to keep the cost down. I think I could do it with the help of this forum....db

 

[MikeWh]

Well, see! You didn't mention the two teenagers and the 8 y.o. The wife tends to be a "given" here the forum.

(hehehe. Just kidding, ladies. My wife is more of a movie nut than I am! Does anyone else know somebody who can recite every word and sound-effect (including Toto barks) in the Wizard Of Oz???)

A haven space tends to weigh pretty highly.... I can't think of any other problems with it, especially with the moderate weather in Arizona.

 

[Chris Hovanic]

Im sure Ron-P will post here and I hope he does not mind me pluging the ~ The Driftwood Theater ~ . Built in his garage and is one of the only "Garage Theaters" I have seen. Great job Ron!

I think a garage is a great place for a dedicated HT. Unless it is full of the other expensive toys... IE boats, cars, motorbikes, dunebuggys ect.

Good luck on you future Garage Theater.

 

[Ron-P]

Thanks Chris!

Donny, I used to have my theater in the house, occupying the extra bedroom. The garage is a much better location. Isolation from the house is a very good thing. I'm still trying to finish her up and so the current web pics are somewhat old. I've just decided to go in a revamp the seating, moving the couch to the back deck and the theater seats up front. So, it may be a month or so before updated pics are loaded.

Good luck!



Peace Out~

 

[Dave Milne]

especially with the moderate weather in Arizona.

Mike has obviously never been to Yuma.

Heat would be one of my biggest concerns. You would need to provide a dedicated A/C system, and a big one at that. Garages are typically very poorly insulated --especially the door.

The bedroom we expanded into a theater was already connected to the house-wide A/C system (three 3-ton AC units). However, because of the heat load from people and equipment, we added a fourth unit ...and the theater has foot-thick R30-ish walls (perlite-filled CMU block furred with 2x4s and R19 batts)!

Watching a movie in a sweaty theater is no fun... unless it's that kind of movie

 

[Donny_B]

I hear ya Dave, I moving to Las Vegas which is no better. I'm going to have to spend the extra dough to insulate it. No way around it.

Ron, Your garage theater is nice. I would to borrow some of your ideas.....db

 

[Ron-P]

Thanks Donny, borrow away.

Living on the West Coast, especially very near the coast does have it's advantages. One small 12,000btu window style a/c unit is more than enough to cool the room filled with gear and 9 people. I did insulate the walls with R13 along with a layer of 5/8" over a layer of 1/2" drywall on the inside and a layer of 5/8" OSB over a layer of 1/2" drywall on the exterior. Over insulation is never a bad thing if you can spare the coin to do so.

Peace Out~

 

[MikeWh]

Mike has obviously never been to Yuma.

I knew I didn't say that right--- I was thinking that in a cold climate, you'd have to walk between a heated house, through an unheated garage to the heated HT. My father-in-law built a separate building from his house for his first HT, and he eventually stopped using it, because he hated walking out to it in the winter.

 

[Troy Swope]

Donny-B:

That is exactly my plan. (although it has been in the works for more than a year now!!) (ask Ron, he and I swapped messages re: the whole garage door thing!)

My garage is a two car garage, that has never had a single car in it, it has always seemed to be "MY" space for all "MY" things the wife wont allow in the house.

anyway, the project has started, i am in the middle of replacing the opener with a newer style that all resides above the door! (no track out into the middle of the garage) This should give me an additional 4 feet of space where the current opener would interfere with my theater plans.

I will post pics as soon as i get the first ones up. I am in NE Ohio, so i need both heating and cooling, however we just replaced the furnace/ac this past summer, and i over speced it so it would handle the new theater.

 

[Ron-P]

Excellent Troy, looking forward to some pics.


Peace Out~