John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hey, here are a few photos from the work with the door:









photo taken after some cutting.. dusty!



some parts of a custom built desk


another part of the wall.. looks like there's been some moisture there?

Allright. But should the apt. wall really be untreated like it is now? (See pics). It's only an old block wall, not even insulated. I feel silly for asking but I just want to make sure..



I would think that atleast the outside-facing wall needs insulation? It gets quite cold there in the winter..

So your brown walls shows one set of studs w/insulation and boards, am I correct? With a little air gap from the blockwalls, or am I taking your plan too literally?

Thanks for all the help.

Alex,
First of all, I get shit scared when I saw the pics of the rotten framed wall. Could you please make a plot plan which indicate what is above and belove ground level, include the whole ground level. I hope I worry for nothing, but I cant be quiet if I think you building something that will be spoiled by moisture. you must find the reason to the moisture before even start to build a studio! Looking forward to the basement plot plan.

Cheers

I don't know if this is good enough, but check it out.

blue arrows indicate downward terrain, the red arrow indicates upward terrain. As you can see, in the corner where I'm putting the new door, there was a lot of earth/dirt propped up against the wall, with no treatment of the wall whatsoever. Only blocks, and moist would have no problem travelling through the wall I'd reckon.

The part of the wall you're worried about is in the middle of the house. Maybe the moist have travelled from the outside wall and to that point?

The pile of earth is under roofing, and the soil is dry (atleast now?) but maybe it has been wet at some point?

Anyways, I guess I have to dig a line outside the entire wall, and add that hard black plastic (english term?), and I also have to put cement on the blockwall so it isn't "bare naked".

I have no idea why the builders of the house put that big chunk of earth there, it's like begging to get moisture inside.. Especially with no protection for the walls.

Alex,
Drawing is explaining well. Where about in Norway are you living? Asking to understand your location climate cycles.
I'm also puzzled why a fairly new house has this kind of a problems and even more why did they (builders) dump soil on an untreated wall???. You mentioned that it is inside the house the moisture wall is, can you make a circle or a coloured line where it appeares. To dig around the house mean a lot of work, (time) or worse (a cost), dont want to kill your spirit, only want to be critical and ask those questions needed to be asked by a third party!!!!

I'm just in a starting phase myself but my building are on above ground elevation. See my thread in studio design, I'll start to build comming sunday, about 80% of materia are ordered. Looking forward to get critisicm (imrovement before I build an error).

Cheers (Ha det)
Kaj

Alex,
Sorry to bother you. Have you used a moisture analyzer on the outer walls in the basement? If not, get it done before perma frost dries out everything and you get the wet surprise in the springtime!!

Cheers (ha det så godt)
Kaj

I totally agree that you need to address the moisture issue before you build down there.

You'll definitely want to read through all of Andy Eade's Rotten Basement Conversion Thread. There you'll see a similar discovery, although his was much worse -- he had damage caused by moisture and termites (and I'm sure the the two conspired together to make things worse over time!).

There is light at the end of the tunnel for him. He's now actively building, but he ran into a lot of issues that had to be fixed before he could start to build.

--Keith

Great! I live just outside Hamar, with the Vikingship and OL'94



Me too! I even found a section of insulation OUTside the wall, covered with soil. Great for sucking up all moisture in the soil and transferring it into the wall, dont you think?



No problem, that's why I'm posting here Well not necessarily dig around the entire house, but the secion around the studio entrance.. I think that's the most "sketchy" areas of the house, with a couple of strange wooden structures and platforms covering up just piles of soil. (Like the one I've removed now).

btw, if you look at page 1, and my first post, you can see an overview photo of the house, there you get a pretty good idea of the terrain.



Lucky you I'll check out your thread!

Thanks for checking in.

Ha det godt!

I'll get it done! I think my boss has one of those actually.

I don't want no wet surprises

Thanks the same (Takk i like måte)

The yellow circle shows where the wall moist is.



The blue circle shows where another moist spot I discovered is.. (I can't remember having seen that one before, really.. hm




It must be coming from here somewhere?


the blue dot shows approx where the spot appears in the ceiling below.. I think maybe it's even more in front of the garage.

It's the same up here, the wooden platform in front of the main entrance/kitchen window, is covering lots of soil.. could it be the inward corner of the house? Something leaking through the masses there?


Another example of soil propped up against the wall. I wouldn't be surprised if the wall behind is unprotected. I'm going to remove this!!

here you see an example of what it's like on the wall with the new door. The soil is pretty far up on the wall, with nothing to protect the wall.


remains of the insulation piece I found..

Thanks, I'll definitely read through that thread! I've looked at it before, but not in detail..

Good to hear he's finally building! Must be very challenging to encounter so much problems, as if the building process itself isn't enough..

First, keep all kind of plants away from the walls, should be at least 1 meter away (perimeter distance) from a wall. It seem to be a slope towards your garage, and you might lower the temp downstairs to awoid the melting of the snow and ice at your driveway.
I had a house before where someone before me decorated with what was cheap to get (clay and water needing plants) today I look only for houses that are truely DRY!!! Even if they have a basement, (which is good in insulation) do I look for a dry solution. I managed to get rid of the wet spot!!

Kaj

Hi Flipside?
I had a look again at your pictures, and it looks like the moisture spots are caused by the backfilling towards none treated walls. Sure there is a story behind what has been done, but you might never find out from the horses mouth. but surely you have to be very thorough in your search for the sources to the moisture spots. The wall that had moisture, did you find any plastic film (condense protection) added on the back side or at the flipside of the wall?
Could the wet spot come from the melting of snow, at the garage door near the main building?

PS
We have started the construction now, but some hours to go before I can test and celibrate an grand opening.
Ha det koseligt.
Kaj

Gee, do 2 years pass by fast! Yes they do!

Anyhoo, I've sort of given up on the garage-basement idea, because it seems I still have problems with water somehow finding its way inside. Here are some photos to illustrate what we've done so far:

All the crap that was up against that wall is now removed:


We removed as much as we managed on the side as well, I will make steps there:


We dug up the entire front of the garage as well, where most of the water seemed to come in:



Replaced the plastic (Notice the right hand side, outer corner. This is the only place we couldn't manage to dig up from either the front or the back of the house, and I'm guessing the water either comes in here, or it comes in in the small gap between the bricks and the garage floor and seeps down..):



Not really related, but we changed the asphalt with bricks:





Now, I've started considering closing off one side of the garage (the one to the right).



We only have one car, so we only use one side of the garage. Then the rooms below can be used for storage of all the stuff in the garage now.
There are some pros to this:

1. Much more height available (281 cm), giving me the possibility of angling the ceiling?

2. More room for slightly angling the back wall and one of the side walls (the new wall dividing the garage, for example?) reducing the need for diffusors and clouds? (Atleast that's what I've gathered from some reading around here)

2. No water issue!

3. It is even more separate from the house, with the left garage side inbetween.

4. The entrance to this room can be from inside the garage which is locked when the gate is down, making it harder to reach for unwanted people..

I feel sort of bad for throwing away the nice suggestions I've been given here though :/ But at the same time, I don't want to take the risk with possible moisture and water coming in if I'm using the rooms below..

One last alternative might be to only use one of the rooms in the basement, the one where you can see the window in the first two photos. But then you have the low ceiling, direct connection to the house, etc.

Best regards,
Alex