New house/basement advice

[stratjacket]

I live in Atlanta as well. Reference for the folks from around the country that may have never been down this way, most of the basements here are walkout basements. Sometimes only the front and part of the sides of the house are underground. My house has the front and one side of the house under ground. The back and other side are completely not underground at all.

For the OP. My basement is finished and one of the rooms is my home studio. I keep a few humidity meters near my guitars and around in various places. Before you go and buy a bunch of stuff, I would recommend buying a few meters and seeing what it's like. They are pretty cheap:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=humidity+monitor

Atlanta stills gets pretty cold and combined with gas heat, the air can get really dry. In non-studio areas where I do not run humidifiers during the winter, the humidity drops down around 10-15% sometimes.

 

[sideshowsmitty]

I live in Atlanta as well. Reference for the folks from around the country that may have never been down this way, most of the basements here are walkout basements. Sometimes only the front and part of the sides of the house are underground. My house has the front and one side of the house under ground. The back and other side are completely not underground at all.

For the OP. My basement is finished and one of the rooms is my home studio. I keep a few humidity meters near my guitars and around in various places. Before you go and buy a bunch of stuff, I would recommend buying a few meters and seeing what it's like. They are pretty cheap:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=humidity+monitor

Atlanta stills gets pretty cold and combined with gas heat, the air can get really dry. In non-studio areas where I do not run humidifiers during the winter, the humidity drops down around 10-15% sometimes.

Thanks a bunch for the info! Cheers, Smitty

 

[splatter]

Wow there are some people in/around Atlanta on here... I’m moving to Acworth in two weeks! We got a nice place with a finished “basement/game type room”. Can’t wait to get there!

we will almost be neighbors. I'm in Holly Springs which is about 15 minutes from Acworth

 

[oliverblack77]

Hi there!

We are also planning on finishing our basement and start with HVAC supplied by https://highperformancehvac.com/ . We want to heat the basement with the HVAC system on the first floor. We are “cutting in” to the air duct that happens to be located in the basement (for the first floor).

Our goal is to push enough hot supply air into the basement to perform multiple complete air changes per hour to warm things up.

The air in the basement is cold, the supply air registers are located up high, hot air rises…

So keep you posted on the results

 

[SpiderWars]

I live right near splatter in Canton. My basement is finished but they just cut into the existing air. So my air is pushed over it limits but it hasn't failed yet. The humidity in mine hasn't been a problem. The front side has windows and you drive into the garage from the side (like stratjacket mentioned) but I'm pretty sure I could dime a 100W and not bother neighbors.

 

[SpiderWars]

Hi there!

We are also planning on finishing our basement and start with HVAC. We want to heat the basement with the HVAC system on the first floor. We are “cutting in” to the air duct that happens to be located in the basement (for the first floor).

Our goal is to push enough hot supply air into the basement to perform multiple complete air changes per hour to warm things up.

The air in the basement is cold, the supply air registers are located up high, hot air rises…

So keep you posted on the results

Mine has shared air and during the winter it is fairly cool down there since the thermostat is upstairs in the main living area. It's almost a 10 degree difference at times. Even now it doesn't need A/C yet and I still wear a fleece or something when I do down there to play.

 

[Speeddemon]

A basement is the bomb for playing loud. Be advised you will probably want to put some soundproofing on the ceiling and any exposed walls to kill the police complaints.

To add to that;
this type of foam is a waste of money for soundproofing and even for room treatment (i.e. better acoustics

as are most (way overpriced) Auralex products.
Those dark foams only will help with killing some flutter echo's and reducing high-end in the room (over 2kHz).

Soundproofing (='my neighbours are no longer annoyed') and sound treatment (='this room sounds so balanced, I love making music in here') are two very different things.
The latter can be done quite on the cheap, if you're handy with DIY.
Make 4" deep frames of 2' by 4', put in 1 or 2 slabs of Owens Corning 703 per frame, cover it with burlap or some 'open' cotton, hang those on the walls, ceilings and corners, and you're ahead of most already.
But proper soundproofing (say, a 35-40dB or more drop in SPL) takes knowledge, planning, measurements and more planning.

 

[Scumback Speakers]

I got my 3 car garage soundproofed (up until LA County made me change that) with help from this forum, run by John Sayers'. I got a lot of help with my project, and $25k later, it was great...right up until the asshats at Home Depot and LA County Planning Dept told me I had to have a working garage door or get fined $1000 per day.

Here's the forum link: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

I did the room within a room design. You used to be able to blast a 100w Marshall Plexi through four 4x12 cabs, and outside it sounded like someone turned on a transistor radio.

Not anymore, I'm sorry to say.

 

[JSutter]

Hi there!

We are also planning on finishing our basement and start with HVAC. We want to heat the basement with the HVAC system on the first floor. We are “cutting in” to the air duct that happens to be located in the basement (for the first floor).

Our goal is to push enough hot supply air into the basement to perform multiple complete air changes per hour to warm things up.

The air in the basement is cold, the supply air registers are located up high, hot air rises…

So keep you posted on the results

Don't do that without consulting an HVAC technician. There are calculations that need to be done.

 

[psychodave]

Hi there!

We are also planning on finishing our basement and start with HVAC. We want to heat the basement with the HVAC system on the first floor. We are “cutting in” to the air duct that happens to be located in the basement (for the first floor).

Our goal is to push enough hot supply air into the basement to perform multiple complete air changes per hour to warm things up.

The air in the basement is cold, the supply air registers are located up high, hot air rises…

So keep you posted on the results

Don't do that without consulting an HVAC technician. There are calculations that need to be done.

Agreed.

We refinished our entire downstairs and opened up walls. By doing that we had to put heat/AC in the attic for upstairs... so I was able to get feeds and returns in the basement. Since then my basement has been perfect.

 

[Exo-metal]

It rained yesterday, and the humidity was at 47%. I bought a nice Whirlpool dehumidifier from Costco and I set it to 35% which is what it should be when I get home. Thanks everyone for the advice. I assume its best to leave guitars in cases and not on stands. (?)

I always keep my guitars in their cases. Even while playing them.

This makes no sense friend