Window Traps!

[HiRaX]

Ok here goes nothing. So a few months ago my boss moved his mother into an assisted living community. (Geezer home) We decided to move our studio out of our super overpriced small space in Manhattan into this nice house in a Southern Connecticut Suburb.(His mothers former house) After building a PVB and wrapping up some final electric work and other assorted construction,(Installing new windows, Insulating some inner walls and painting, etc.) we decided to go ahead and cover the new windows with something to help reduce leakage into our now "live room" (old living room). Only thing is I'm such a bonehead that by the time we finished the first window cover I realized that it probably wouldn't be as effective without at least 1 layer of sheet rock.....Oh well. Anyway after examining the outer walls of the house we have come to the conclusion that even if we did use 5/8s inch drywall in these window cover panels that we are still getting severe leakage through the walls due to poor insulation which we might end up having new insulation blown in at a later time. Any who, the panels we made will pretty much serve as acoustic panels and weren't terribly expensive or difficult to create. I'll start with the materials

3" inch thick Roxul Insulation

1" X 6" plywood

1" X 3" Pine

Thin black cotton fabric from a local fabric store.

Carpenters glue

Drywall Screws

L brackets

Adhesive Foam Strips

And last but not least some tools.........skillsaw, stapler, Drill, yada yada yada

We first measured around the window, giving ourselves an extra 1/2" all the way around, then cut our 1" X 6" ply accordingly giving us something like this...

Basic Frame with L brackets installed


Please forgive me my camera sucks.(I refuse to admit that its just me that sucks at using cameras)


Then after we painted the frame we applied the adhesive foam strips to the edges that will meet with the wall upon installation to give a somewhat tight seal..


After this is done we had to install mollys in the wall to screw the brackets into because the walls are old and plaster. This is what the frame installed around the window frame looks like...(or at least what I could fit in the picture.

[HiRaX]

Here's a close up giving you an idea of how far we spaced the frame from the window frame.



Once that is in place we created 2 inner frames (both covered with black fabric on one side) that will sandwich the roxul in place. We used 1" X 3" Pine square dowels for this and basically measured the distance between the inner mounted frames leaving about an 1/8 inch or so to compensate for the cotton fabric.

We drilled a few guide holes about halfway through the pine where we will be screwing the pieces together. This allows for most of the drywall screw to be recessed into the wood and leaves enough space for about 1/2 inch of the screw to catch the next piece without splitting the wood.

[HiRaX]

We applied carpenters glue to the flat edge of the pieces that we did NOT pre drill the guide holes into.

[HiRaX]

After those were complete (2X inner frames for each "window trap") we then laid that on top of our fabric, pulled it tight and stapled on one side.





After that's done we then install the inner frame into the larger frame. (Stapled side facing in so the window from the outside looks nice and clean with the fabric)

[HiRaX]

After that's finished we cut our roxul to the appropriate length and wedge them into place..

[HiRaX]

After that's complete we wedged the final inner frame in place and boom..there's your new window panel

[HiRaX]

I know these aren't the best quality images for i've been a total wreck trying to get the construction under wrap so I can start running cables and getting the studio ready for some sessions, but I just wanted to try and share it with the community as much as some guys like Ethan could easy point out a jillion things we did wrong . I also know that most of you panel building gurus use 4" and thicker Mineral Rock wool Insulation or what have you, but we used whatever we could get quickly and ran with it. Hope some of you could maybe get something out of this for its a good way to block up a window and have an acoustic panel/trap that's probably a tad more effective than a thick curtain.

Thanks for reading.

p.s. let me know if you have any questions because I'm sure some of this might be confusing. I did have a contractor help with most of the construction of these.

Peace

-Chris

[Glenn Kuras]

Good job!!thumbsup

[HiRaX]

thanks

[Versatile255]

sweet man cool idea inspiring now i gotta think of a way to cover the 2 windows in my room.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by HiRaX

thanks

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Just one note. WEAR GLOVES WHEN you work with mineral wool. It will not kill you but make you itch pretty darn bad. As I bet you KNOW NOW!!

Glenn

[HiRaX]

lol yea its itchyyyyyyyyy