I was looking at a house last night for when we move (hopefully soon) and there is a nice area in the basement for a home theater, the problem is that the screen would need to go where the power panel is. I have a nice Carada fixed screen, so it isn't something that I want to have to take down in case something "pops".

Ideas?

The unfinished room is 18' x 13'. I don't want to go with a "wide" theater if I can avoid it as I've been 12' from my screen before and I like the 14' distance I have now.

The only thing that I thought of would be something with a false wall or something so that at least the screen isn't right on top of the panel, but I hadn't even worked out the details of how to make it work with some sort of access or something. Plus that starts to eat away at the size of the room. Probably less than ideal.

Maybe hire someone to relocate the panel? But I have no idea how much that would cost. I like that the panel is in the basement because then I could run a dedicated circuit just for the theater.

Ideas?

My first thought was a false wall, too. If it's only enough room to squeeze in you won't lose much of the room. Plus you could incorporate an equipment rack into it, so your components are right below the screen, recessed into the false wall. You could use the space for easy access to the wiring.

I think relocating the panel would be your best choice. There are regulations governing how close something can be in front of the panel, such as 3 feet, and what can't be directly to the sides, such as a window.

I think relocating the panel is going to be expensive.

Just throw some money at the problem. It'll be fine.

I hired an electrician to put in a new/bigger panel with new breakers and it cost me $500. The panel is also where the elec enters the house from outside, so that would have to be moved also. You won't know for sure until you get some estimates. I got 3 estimates. One was $1800, one was $1500, and one was $500. The more expensive ones were going to do stuff that wasn't necessary.

Relocating the panel (unless you are very lucky) 99% chance you'll have a junction box in the same location to splice and extend the wires. And by code has to be acessable, 3' front clearance, etc.

How about the other end of the room for the screen?

Or hang/hinge your fixed screen so it's removable. How often do you blow a breaker. Not perfect but doable

Personally I like the "false wall so you can have a rack and access to the back of the equipment

By junction box, you mean a small breaker box that's wired off of the main breaker box?

Nope, if the incoming mains or branch circuits come from different directions, up, left, right, thru a wall... you would have to splice/connect and extend those wires/cables. Those spliced terminations by code need to be accessable. A junction box is just a big grey "rated" enclosure/box with knockouts and a cover.

There you go! Just hinge that thing at the ceiling. Nice work, Jeff.

OK.



Blue area is proposed home theater room, black area is family room since the stairs come into that room first and it would help to make things feel a little more "open".

The breaker box is just off-center a little, but not enough to be out of the way. The wall opposite won't work because it would be quite off-set to the right (as you face the screen) with a large doorway up front. I could make the doorway smaller (it is about the right size for some french doors) but I still don't like the idea of the door up front.

Like Jeff says just hand it from the ceiling. If you need to get behind it just swing the bottom out and prop a piece of wood in like a car hood to keep it sticking out while you reset the breaker. Might need to have it hanging a little out from the wall so it gives you enough room when it swings out depending on how high the breaker box is. That way you wouldn’t even need to take it down to get back there.

I would call Carada about whether you can mount directly to the screen. Do to my screen size they said I should build a frame because otherwise the aluminum frame would eventually sag. Cost me about $30 in wood and other parts, but mine is overkill, plus I rigged a pulley system with turnbuckles so I can raise, lower and adjust it myself.

I was going to rig it so that I could hoist the bottom up so the whole screen is flat to the ceiling if I ever wanted to get it out of the way w/o having to take it down but I decided it’s actually less of a hassle just taking it down if I ever want to.

Cheers,
Dean

Yeah, since there is a bracket at the top middle and bottom middle to keep tension on it, some sort of vertical bracing would be needed. I would also need to hang it in some fashion that it isn't too easily moved that air movement makes it shake or vibrate....

Here is a picture of the frame I made form 1x2s. The vertical ones are “sandwiched” between the horizontal ones held in place with corner/T-braces with the ropes/pulleys that hoist and hold the frame also tensioning the frame together. The mounting rails are attached to the horizontal pieces and so the screen hangs on the frame just like it was a wall. To level the frame I have turnbuckles between the frame and ceiling so I can fine tune the height of each end. I’m normally not that anal but with the M80s just below the screen even a half inch off looks annoying.

To keep it from swaying and leaning forward do to the uneven center of balance I attached a 1x2 off the bottom of the frame to hold it steady against the wall. Actually the thing doesn’t sway at all but the guide piece does keep the frame from leaning forward.

I’m sure there are simpler ways of doing this but I also wanted something I could raise and lower w/o any help. I also realize you can’t get behind your screen the way I can but you could always rig something that two people could just hold up and hook on keeping it simpler and not needing to be behind it.