Intalling an air conditioner in the recording room?

I construct a room in my living room with floating floor and the nice thing to have it sound proof. I finish construction in the winter so I did not think of the summer. Anyway I did instal an ac in the living room and put a duct to the room, so I had to do a hole in the wall but now the sound proof is not as good as before. I hear the air conditioner now and also I hear the phone ring. Before people could talk out side and nothing will come in the recording. Can anyone direct me on this one? The room get really hot but I don't want to sacrifice the acoustic. Thanks.

[lpdeluxe]

My studio is in a converted detached garage. I use a window AC unit and shut it off when I'm recording. I understand that remote-control models are available but I haven't found one yet!

I have one in the control room with remote. That is not the problem but in the live room where people sing or play the instruments it get very hot even in the winter, I did a good job on on sound proofing the room. I just put anther ac in the living room cause is closer to the live room and conect a duct but I have to insulate the duct with fiber glass insulatation I think maybe that will do the trick.

Titus,
One way to eliminate the sound of the a/c and noise is to use either insulated flex duct or the rigid compressed insulated duct board, but run a circuitous route. In other words make the air run through some loops or jogs so that the sound has to bounce around some and can get absorbed into the ductwork.

Tom

If you want a web site to visit that will give you a TON of info check out John Sayers site
http://johnlsayers.com

Thanks Tom

the only problem with running loops or jogs in ductwork is.....every 90 degree turn in ductwork equals another 10 feet of duct......you will run into air flow problems doing this, also it will tax you air conditioning system to the point that you may have to call a service tech to come out and adjust the subcooling and superheat( the saturated heat above ambient heat ) to make the system run with any effiency at all..........this can be had for more than 60 dollars an hour........the studio is important as well as customer comfort but, your a/c sytstem needs attention too....think before you act.................btw, I am a master havc tech as well as an electrician.......the sound engineer stuff came much later in life!

yeah,

you need to have your air conditioning air go down a "tunnel". the tunnel should have some soundproofing "interrupting" the path, similar to a rats maze.

but not too much interruption.

take a look at whisperroom.com

look at their iso booths. take a look at the metal rectangle on the outside. that's the air tunnel. the blower is on one end, and it has to travel down the path to get inside the booth.

You can also reduce the restriction in the duct and the muffler (section with turns) by keeping the cross section of the duct fairly large. Also a large cross section will reduce the volocity of the air and this will reduce the turbulance which will reduce noise levels in the duct.

In the muffler section use sound absorant materials at each turn.

The duct should be contructed from a material that is not flexible. If your current duct is made of sheet metal you are picking up some sound because the sheet metal will resonate and amplify sounds which are then directed into your "sound proof" room through the duct opening.

I know that all these suggestions sound like a good idea but, one has to have an understanding of cfm's ( cubic feet per minute ) and the physics of air flow and what is needed for a particular room size. Typically.....you need 1ton of cooling (24000 btu's ) for every 600 sq ft of living space, you also need to have 400 cfm per ton of cooling.....lets forget about heat load and r-ratings on the insulation and the windows for the moment. One 6" run of duct is good for about 110 cfm's through a 4x10 register......go back to the 600 cfm's per ton and figure how many cfm's your room needs and divide that by the number of 6" runs you need.......btw...if you have metal duct that is not insulated...not only will you have problems with noise...you will have problems with the duct sweating and water stains............give me the dimentions of your room and I will give the formula for figuring the proper duct size for that room.

addition to what jpw said... isolations of the ducts is extremely important, a normal duct is usually a aluminium pipe wrapped in fiberglass and plastic (this is just for the internal ducts).

The only real way of sound proofing a studio with a/c is to increase the duct size. The ducts in my studio are approx. 4 feet wide. The air moves slower in the duct, thus reducing the sound of the a/c. Although, depending on your system this might not work... it depends how far your compressor and fan are from the ducted room.

[ShaneC]

Get a split air conditioner. There are no ducts and they are super quiet.