converting a pool house into a project studio

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:29 am

Any suggestions or leads on converting a pool house into a studio? I'm planning on buying one of two homes that has an indoor pool.

House (1.) The room is approx 60 x 40 with cedar interior. Barn style roof about 16 feet high with tappering roof down to 12 feet on the side walls. Few window.

House (2.) The room is 48 x 36 with cedar interior. Its a box 24 high with skylights and 16 long windows.

I want to fill the pool in or... could I use the concrete pit for something else? Maybe put a floor on top...

which one makes a better start to a studio?

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:19 pm

I'm a little confused, dont homes in Canada have a higher value due to a pool, as we in Los Angeles??

Wouldnt it be less expensive to buy a house without a pool, and build a custom studio in the back???

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:31 pm

Hi, if it was new... yes. However, nice old homes with run down pools add no extra value to the home itself. People fear the huge expense to fix it up. These pool houses are usually well insulated and would cost 100 grand or more to build... The one I'm looking at would cost about 150 000 just to build the building.

Its something I'm thinking about but wonder which would be better and if the actual pool would be of use or would it be better to fill it in and floor it over?

Maybe harddrives could go in the shallow end? Build the control room over the shallow end?

Maybe have the vocal booth in the deep end and line it with auralex acoustic tile etc. Put Grand piano in a more ambient area, Nice stage for bands and so on.

I wouldn't be building a major studio ( big Neve board) as I feel they are beyond my league plus not even worth all the expense now a days. Leave that up to record company's. I would build this for personal use, quality demo's for local talent and offer free community services for choirs, etc thinking of doing music for fund raising things etc.
A mid level studio for bands to rock and do demos. Children starting out, helping people.

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:56 pm

edited for content by Rod Gervais
These guys might have some good ideas for u...

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 4:27 am

Liveengineer wrote:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php
These guys might have some good ideas for u...

Hi Liveengineer,

Very Happy

I saw this was your second post.
A bit fun: You refer the owner himself of the whole recording.org (including this forum) towards other forums.
Wink

Must feel a bit frustrating for him ( Mr. Green

bigtree, you can find the good guys elsewhere).

Bigtree,

I never done such a thing, but I can imagine, if ventilation is possible, no moist problems occur (or can be controlled), access can be provided, the depth of the pool is suitable, that you perfectly could use the volume of the pool as well.

Since build into the ground you have some high TL values there.

You could also use the pool as cellar and use it to put a floating room on top. In that case the cavity/space of the pool (or partly) can be supportive

It's all a matter of budgets and targets.
Isn't that a thing to get a pro over and have a look at the possibilities, wishes etc. versus budgets?

You say such pools are good insulated. That's most likely true, but thermal and acoustic insulation can go hand in hand but can even be contradictory as well. In how far does TL matters to the environment and so on.

You have the space, hence the potential is there, but there are lots of ways to fill in that potential.

This looks as a very general question to me to handle in a forum.

Eric

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:53 am

Ah Eric... you said that so well, good to see you on my thread! I was hoping to see you on this on.

Eric... can you think more about this idea of mine. I would appreciate anymore ideas you come up with. It would be a long term process for me, semi pro for community projects and myself. Setting up a stage and doing live recordings too.
Having a basic plan so I start out without making more work for myself later on if it all goes as planned.

House 1.) 60 x 40 feet is the one I'm now concidering. I will post some drawings of what it looks like.

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 9:17 am

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:17 am

Liveengineer wrote:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php
These guys might have some good ideas for u...

Live,

might be worthwhile for you to take a look at who moderates this forum............

Son of a gun - it's Steve and I - Steve who also moderates at John's forum - and little old me who also frequents that forum.

I would almost have to guess that we could do just as good a job here as we could there.

Personally, I find it offensive that you would Join here and then refer someone to a different website to look for answers.

If you think that little of our acoustics forum - leave and don't come back............. otherwise be fore-warned that I will not tolerate any more of those types of actions on your part.

Sincerely,

Rod

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:33 am

Chris,

I would have to suggest that you speak with a structural engineer regarding this question.

Most indoor/inground swimming pools here in the NE states are constructed utilizing a Shotcrete shell.........

In other words - excavation is done - rebar is installed and then the concrete mix is wet sprayed to create the pool shell.

The shell is not designed with a vertical loading in mind - because neither the earth load nor the water load would ever impart that type of stress on the pool walls.

I would be quite surprised to find that the pool was structurally capable of taking any sort of a real load under those conditions.

That having been said - it's nice to have a crawl space below at least the control room - for feeding low volatage wiring up to the board and to other outboard gear that you may have in your space.

It's one of the things we provided at Power Station - but - in order to provide adequate structural support - as well as a slab with a low enough center frequency to not create problems - the slab ended up having to be 12" thick at the edges and 14" thick in the center - this for a 12' open span directly below the board.

Sincerely,

Rod

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 12:52 pm

Adding to Rod's post above.
I have doing some studying about pools, since I own 2 homes that have pools. (They cost me a lot of money!!!!)

Construction out here is also rebar and shotcrete. Its basically a tub that is filled with water, we are always warned about draining, or partially draining a pool during the winter/rainy season. The lands water table is closer to the surface, and will actually push the pool up. I have seen pools erupt up to 5 feet when drained. The water in the filled pool is the opposing force.
When a pool is to be unused, most laws require drilling multiple holes or breaking up the shotcrete to expose the underlying earth, and filling with the empty pool with earth.

That being said, I think a geological engineer might/should also be consulted??

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:02 am

Thanks for the pro POV from all of you. Rather than taking a chance I'm backing out on this dream. too old for long term headaches. I've chosen a house with some land instead. If I come across money, I may build my dream studio instead.

Thanks guys.

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 8:18 pm

TVPostSound wrote:

Adding to Rod's post above.
I have doing some studying about pools, since I own 2 homes that have pools. (They cost me a lot of money!!!!)

Construction out here is also rebar and shotcrete. Its basically a tub that is filled with water, we are always warned about draining, or partially draining a pool during the winter/rainy season. The lands water table is closer to the surface, and will actually push the pool up. I have seen pools erupt up to 5 feet when drained. The water in the filled pool is the opposing force.
When a pool is to be unused, most laws require drilling multiple holes or breaking up the shotcrete to expose the underlying earth, and filling with the empty pool with earth.

That being said, I think a geological engineer might/should also be consulted??

You know I never thought about that before Smile

Your pool becomes a boat! Shocked

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 11:05 pm

Paul,

But thats for a normal house cellar too and underground parkings, metro's, tunnels, gasoline tanks at home, whatever.

They must be build or mounted to resist this water pressure, because they all want to float if the ground water level is high enough.

Many dacades back (I don't know the current situation) in the center of Antwerp, to relieve all those underground constructions from Hotels and whatever other things from this water pressure, so much water was constantly pumped out of the ground that the ground water level at certain areas dropped to bellow -16 m (I hope but think remember number correct).
This caused the old trees in the Antwerp Zoo, which is right in the center of the town, to start dying or whatever, but anyhow something seriously wrong was happening.
The roots of those trees couldn't reach this ground water anymore, so those roots started growing upwards rather than downwards in order to get surface water. And those deep roots giving stability on those monumental trees started dying.
This caused enormous investments in the Antwerp Zoo to integrate a complete artificial watering system in the ground in order for those trees to survive.
I vaguely remember intensive discussions about who had to pick up the bill for that.

But as said, I have no idea of the current situation. I assume, but don't know in fact, that there are better related regulations nowadays.
.

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 10:20 am

eric_desart wrote:

But thats for a normal house cellar too and underground parkings, metro's, tunnels, gasoline tanks at home, whatever.

They must be build or mounted to resist this water pressure, because they all want to float if the ground water level is high enough.

Absolutely, when we design structures along the shorline (where we have to concern ourselves with not only water table leves - but also surge forces) we usually design ballasted foundation systems capable of withstanding these effects.

It isn't unusual to see a home built on concrete piles with huge pile caps and then a 3' thick extensively reinforced basement slab (above the casps) to overcome these forces.

My bigger concern for these swimming pools is that the long term design is intended for a balanced interior to exterior loading - and one sided loading (earth no water) is only intended for short term periods (while repainting or repairing the pool for example).

Structural damage to the pool side walls can occur if left in that condition for too long.

They are not designed to create a bearing foundation.

Sincerely,

Rod

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 12:10 pm

Rod Gervais wrote:

It isn't unusual to see a home built on concrete piles with huge pile caps and then a 3' thick extensively reinforced basement slab (above the casps) to overcome these forces.
...

ooo... Piles and ground movement!!!

Something I do have experience of.

My original studio plan was at my previous house. This house didn'thave a double garage to house a studio, so the plan was to build an extension to house it.

I got outline planning permission, but the trouble was the garden boundary was lined with lots of tall Leylandi trees, noted for their consumption of ground water.

This meant that the extension had to be built on 9m ( 30 foot ) piles and where it joined the original house slip joints had to be employed to allow house and extension to move independantly.

After my eyes popped out at seeing the co$t!!! I scrapped the idea and moved house instead!!

Smile

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