Seeking advice on simulator build in complete home rebuild

[djpvt]

Hi all,

I've been a lurker here as I dreamed of someday having the space for a simulator. Well, we have finally decided to move forward with a rebuild of our home. The architectural designs (relevant snapshots attached) have already accounted for this space, but I am hoping to do the actual build myself slowly down the road.

As we are still a month out from breaking ground, I still can make some minor changes and/or requests. Given all the experience here, I wanted to see if there were any must-do's or nice-to-have's that I should account for during the actual home build (ex: I was thinking of asking for electrical outlets in the ceiling for the projector/simulator)

Here are some of my main questions, but honestly, I am open to any and all recommendations at this point:

1. This is going to be on the loft floor, above the master. What should I do for noise both hitting down on the mat and traveling throughout the house (ie through walls)?. I have already asked for additional sound insulation in the drywalls of the rec room, but are there any recommendations on flooring (we were leaning towards an LVP, but I assume carpet is always quieter)?

2. With the vaulted ceilings, will installing a ceiling mounted simulator (ex: Uneekor EYE or GCHawk) be challenging -- any recs here?

3. With the vaulted ceilings, should I order or build something that is angled for the hitting screen -- or is that a waste given how projection works?

4. Are the windows going to be a problem?

FWIW, I don't own a simulator nor anything I would need for a complete build. It's a complete fresh start -- all I have right now are the house plans.

Thanks in advance!

[Stetson]

The first thing that jumps out to me is that the room is not very deep, and the wet bar and bathroom door are in a very dangerous area; so make sure to put something in place to help prevent folks from taking a driver to the face after using the bathroom.

Now to your questions:
1. You will want to insulate between the joist above the master bedroom and the rec room subfloor. Do your best to make sure there is mass and minimize wood on wood any chance you get. In terms of flooring carpet will be quieter. You may want to get familiar with green glue, mineral wool insulation, sound channels and other methods to reduce sound transmission.
2. I wouldn't except the mounting to be too difficult
3. Don't bother trying to fill the vaulted space, just make a regular rectangular projection area and call it good
4. Windows shouldn't be a problem but personally I would get a hospital track and heavy curtains, then pull the curtains when golfing. It will help with projector image as well as protect against any unexpected ricochets.

It is an exciting time, and there will be many questions and doubts that come about. Just stick to your guns, do not let everyone give their .02 unless they give their wallets too

[djpvt]

Really helpful! I didn't even think about people coming in and out of that bathroom. The good thing is that is a shared bathroom with a second entrance so I might have to use a rubber doorstop wedge on the rec room door whenever using the simulator to be extra safe.

Thanks for the keywords re sound proofing. Will bring these up with the builder to discuss options!

[What4]

So is that 14' from the tee to the impact projector screen? I've got maybe ~10' distance between my net and tee box and sometimes my wedge shots bounce off the ceiling. I only have a 8-9' ceiling in my basement though, so maybe you'll be ok...? definitely plan for errant shots to your window - better safe than sorry. good luck and post some pics when you're done.

[djpvt]

I'll have 14ft to the wall, but I imagine I need at least 1ft or more buffer between the screen and the wall -- so really somewhere between 12-13ft. I was a bit worried that wouldn't be enough space but it glad to hear you make it work with ~10ft. Do you recommend moving the hitting area closer to the screen to avoid hitting the ceiling -- any downsides from this? It seems most prebuilt packages (not sure I'll go that route yet) for ceiling mounted, like Uneekor's all-in-power suite or GC's Albatross have specs pushing 16' instead in depth so that had me a little worried I didn't have the space.

[What4]

i guess that's something you'll have to figure out - but yeah i was worried about wedge shots hitting your ceiling if you're too far away from the impact screen. i couldn't tell what height your ceilings are in the picture. if you have some golf simulators in the city you live in, grab your wedges and go try out their setup and compare. i live in northern Virginia and they are springing up everywhere. maybe bring a laser distance finder and take some measurements to compare. Golf Galaxy and PGA Tour store have sims in their stores in my area.

[djpvt]

oh no way, I'm in NOVA too. I've seen all sorts of set ups, but yeah most of the purpose-built places are going to have plenty of space.

[PapaKlix]

I recently completed converting my garage to a simulator with an 18'x10' screen, Uneekor EyeXO, Benq LK936ST, custom built computer, etc. here are my thoughts...

Things to account for during the home build - wires of course. I put speakers in my wall behind my screen and if you're doing speakers too, you'll want wires for them run. The launch monitor will also need to run a wire from it to your PC so you can either have the builder put in a conduit or get the launch monitor ahead of time to have the wire so the builder can run it before the walls are drywalled. I would personally prefer the conduit as I wouldn't want to hang my launch monitor, have it not work and wonder if a nail or screw went through the wire when it was buried in the walls/ceiling. Not sure if you have plans for a TV but I would add one of those as well. My friends and I love watching golf and playing golf, this time of year it's nice to watch football while hitting balls and sometimes my wife will come out and watch TV while I practice short game for hours. I also run the Uneekor View software when playing and will often use that TV to show all my numbers (clubhead speed, ball speed, spin rate, face angle, etc).

In terms of your other questions:
1. I think you got a good answer from Stetson and I'm not a pro here but I just wanted to mention my garage is insulated on all 4 walls and you can only really hear driver from the inside of the house. I would think you'd be OK with a good sound proofing plan/solution. I installed NewAge LVP in my garage and love it - I actually like it better than the hardwood we have inside the house as it's far more durable.

2. If you go with the EyeXO, it *has* to be mounted between 9' - 10' from the floor. I installed mine originally at 10' 1 1/2" and had a lot of issues with spin rate on driver, dropped it down 3 1/2" and it was immediately better. You'll then also have to account for the launch monitor in planning where you're going to install your projector. This was a mistake I made, completely forgot the launch monitor would be in the way of the projector at the height I was planning so I had to drop the projector after the fact. To have a nice clean installation, I would have your builder build a box of sorts that extends down to the right height... this is what I did and I hide the power adapter brick in there. Not sure of the height restrictions of the GC Hawk.

3. Not really sure what your question is here but if you're wondering about ceiling protection - you will definitely want something. It might not be you but someone will hit the ceiling. My ceiling is about 11', I made my own padded panels that extend out 8' from the screen and I hit from about 10'6" or so and the panels have been hit 6 or 7 times in the 4 months it's been operational.

4. As far as light goes, I ended up tinting the 2 windows I have and that does the trick for light. The positioning of yours would worry me with someone hitting a nasty shank so some heavy duty curtains would likely be your best bet.

Good luck with your build, I ordered all my stuff from Par2Pro and they were great. Communication, customer service, everything was top-notch... highly recommend them.

[djpvt]

Thanks for all this info! This is really helpful.

1. Yes -- I'm leaning towards actually doing the whole house in LVP now after researching it. Sounds like it has come a long way in terms of quality and I'm not particularly worried about resale at this point since we plan to live there for a long time.

2. Good to know about the Eye being so sensitive to small changes in height! I'm actually reaching out to them directly right now for some input.

3. Yeah exactly, I was worried about hitting the ceiling so having something protrude out at an angle I figured would protect the ceiling but also not make it feel like a box within a room (if that makes sense). How exactly to achieve this, I'm not sure yet.

4. Yeah I think I need some sort of heavy duty protection for the windows. Does the XO require bright lights or lighting just on top of the hitting area to read correctly?

[PapaKlix]

1. Yeah - the stuff I ordered is so darn dense and it's seemingly bulletproof, it comes with a lifetime warranty! My 600 square feet weighed 2,600 lbs! It's so realistic most people think it's actually wood.
3. Your situation is interesting, given the angle up of the vaulted ceilings I would be worried about an errant shot hitting whatever protection you have and bouncing back and hitting something expensive. I guess that all depends on the angle. If I had mine to do again, I'm not sure I'd make 47 individual padded panels again although I'm not sure what I'd do as there aren't really great options. There's some company that makes custom ones that would save you from the work but I think they're really expensive.
4. I have 2 of these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and they do the trick. I wanted to do 3 but I had a ceiling joist dead in the way of what would make sense to put 3 but 2 seem to work just fine. You don't want them directly above the hitting area as that will cast shadows off the player.

[What4]

any closer to finishing your build? post some pictures!

[djpvt]

Will do! House construction takes a long time... but we're close. I did follow recommendations here about using resilient channels and planning for as much sound insulation as possible (Rockwool + LVP + additional sound proofing below LVP). I'll report back when I finally get a bay in to test things out.