Darkroom Construction

[Troy Hamon]

Well, thanks for the input everybody. I appreciate the experience present on this forum, and the willingness to provide input. In the case of my particular darkroom project, I am past the point of being able to take some of your suggestions, but I hope this thread will prove helpful not just to me but to anybody with a dark(room) dream...

My assorted dilemmas have been addressed at different times in the darkroom portraits thread, and I'd rather not waste Sean's bandwidth duplicating those posts here. Instead, I'll give a synopsis of what has happened and where I am at present.

But first, quick replies to comments and questions...

Photobum: I do have a basement, but it is finished and is an integral part of the house. In fact, our master suite is the downstairs, and while I did make a push at decreasing the size of our bedroom and bathroom, that wasn't even remotely acceptable to the better half.

Dave Miller: You are certainly right that we will have to heat the structure, so though the outside is a 'shed,' the building is insulated and finished on the inside. I have also opted for a design that allows me to leave the darkroom fallow for extended periods without need for heat. The details will follow...

Rlibersky: You are the third person in two days to tell me how much they love three-way switches, but it is too late for that in my case...hopefully I'll survive without.

Monophoto: My goodness, this is an incredibly informative post! I think I'll have to respond to your points in numerical fashion.
1. Size. My wife has actually pushed me toward an even larger size to allow me to set up for portraits and copy work in the shed rather than having some of that out here. But I agree about always wanting larger, so I'm setting up for the largest paper you can currently buy readily, and figuring if I ever go larger than 20x24" I'll go to rolls and thin developing tanks that require more manual manipulation. And yes, I did lots of pre-sketches and kept refining them.
2. Cold. I am setting up so I can allow the darkroom to go cold. I mix all of my chemicals from powder, and if I do allow the darkroom to go cold I intend to dispose of all liquid chemicals at that point, except acetic acid, which will be stored elsewhere. The shed will be insulated and finished on the inside, so it will be similar to house construction but only 4" walls.
3. I plan to have space for finishing work on prints and storage of final products.
4. Wiring. All the wiring is to code, including GFCI sockets around the wet area.
5. Safety. I hadn't thought about the possibility of a gas attack in the darkroom, hopefully that isn't going to be an issue. I have had a window installed, which I will cover for darkroom work but which will allow egress if necessary.
6. Wiring for convenience. You're ahead of me on this one, I never thought to combine them circuits like that. But I expect to be in the building to take pictures as well, so maybe it wouldn't be the best thing for me.
7. There are no code issues because I am plenty far from any well or surface runoff, and I don't have any controlled effluent (I do silver recovery and don't use toners). The water is going into a grey water sump that is as deep as we could dig it (6 feet plus).
8. Ventilation. I got two Panasonic whisperline fans, one to pump air in and one to pump air out. That way I can have positive pressure, but can also make sure to keep fumes off my eyes when mixing chemicals. And yes, the air will be cold, but it will at least be coming in right above the heater...
9. Drying. I actually have included that. Hopefully I don't have any truly egregious oversights, because as you will see when I post the description of the project...it is a little late for anything but minor alterations...

blaze-on: Thanks for the link, I appreciate a chance to see somebody else's solutions to the common problems.

jovo: I have solved the water line problem by not having any. I'm working off of a large cistern that can be drained dry, thus allowing the darkroom to go cold if there is a time period where that is helpful. I thought long and hard about how to install the water lines, and finally elected to avoid it altogether.

I'll put together a post giving a picture of the project so at least in my case people can see where I am. I wish this thread had existed when I was first working this out in my head months ago.

Post #62! Woohoo! Watch out laz...!

[Troy Hamon]

In my case, I opted to buy a shed package from a building supplier in Anchorage, and have it barged out to King Salmon, which saved $$ on shipping since the other option here is air freight. The standard package they sell is 12x16' with a garage door and a window. I didn't see how I needed either of these, and was going to just axe them both, but the space question started to bounce around in my head (as do many other things, luckily for everybody most of those things never ricochet exactly right to exit my mouth or fingertips...but sometimes...) and so my wife and I started thinking about what all was this shed going to be used for, anyway... She was pushing for a building that would include studio space, so I could set up and take portraits as well. That to me seemed like it would need to be larger, but I was already a bit concerned about the costs we were looking at...but she pushed me toward making it a bit larger so I would not wish I had done so after all was complete. When I spoke with the sales rep, he said they could make it any size I wanted, so I got a quote for 12x20', adding 4' on from the standard package. I had them remove the garage door, which would normally be for lawn tractors or ATV's, but left in the window since it would give me the option of egress and of using available light for studio work. Of course, I already wish I had gone for 12x24', but that's inevitable I suspect...

Most of the sheds they sell don't include insulation or interior finishing of any sort, so that was a topic of some discussion with the sales rep. We settled on R-11 unfaced batts since the shed was 2x4 construction, linoleum floor, and I asked for sheet rock quotes. He said that in his opinion the sheet rock was too expensive to ship, due to its weight, and encouraged me to consider some low-grade wood paneling. After some thought (which is probably more than I really should call it, since I know nothing about sheet rock or wood paneling...but at least it bounced around in my head for a day or two...) I decided that wood paneling would be fine. Then he asked about the ceiling. What a great question! Isn't that usually sheet rock as well? We decided that I could probably just use the same wood paneling. So...out it all came.

Now during this time, I had not yet ordered the plumbing or the electrical equipment, figuring we ought to get the building up before we did too much. But while it was on the barge it occurred to me that I had to decide a couple of things before we started. One of those things was whether I was going to run water lines out from the house, and the other was whether to run power out from the house. In both cases, I eventually decided not to. Instead, I opted for a 200 gallon water tank that would be inside the shed, elevated in one corner, and operate via gravity feed to the sink. I opted for a drain that was directly down into the ground since we were 200 feet from our well casing and I use silver recovery (I only do B&W myself, any color goes to the lab...at least so far...though I have to confess I'm not likely to get into color that much myself). After the material came, but before we put it up, I dug a hole as deep as I possibly could without slowing the project down too much (which amounted to about 6 feet down) and put in a five gallon bucket filled with rocks with a bunch of holes drilled in the bottom. Since the last three feet of the hole were totally in sand layer, it should work well. A PVC pipe was fit into a hole in the top of the bucket, and the hole was filled with rocks with a plastic layer over the rocks to prevent downward migration of dirt into the drain rocks in the bucket. Dirt was placed on top of the plastic to seal it against the sides of the hole and to finish filling in the hole itself, and the PVC was capped off above ground. I had decided to bring the power out from the power pole because it was about equal in terms of distance traveled, and didn't require messing up the house. Now, we were ready to build.

In the process of ordering, I had considered various foundation types. Our problem here, as you can imagine, is frost heave. Most of the options were not overly attractive due to expense and headache, but they all had proponents. In the end, I opted for the one that was recommended by the builders that had been out here the longest. It was also the simplest and most inexpensive (since when does that happen? it must be a mistake!). Rather than ground penetration, we put the building on treated 4x12" skids. The skids were placed on pressure-treated pads 3'x3', which were in turn placed on concrete paving blocks stacked and graded to level. For smaller buildings, this works well in our country, and avoids costly and often unsuccessful attempts to avoid frost heave. When the earth moves slightly, it doesn't jack up the pilings or crack the concrete. It obviously wouldn't be ideal for large structures, but this isn't a large structure...

We framed the beast and put up the roof and walls, and I already was starting to think about the things I needed to do next, including get ventilation in order so we could insulate and seal the place up on the inside. After looking around, I opted for two Panasonic Whisperline fans, one to pump air in and one to pump it out. The air coming in is run through about 23' of ducting in the ceiling...which hopefully gives us a chance for a bit of warming in the winter when it gets really cold...and dumps fresh air directly above the heater. The heater is in one of the corners, and is a ventless infrared propane heater. Hopefully, the red flame will be a safelight color in wavelength, but if not I'll have to find a solution to that problem, won't I? In the meantime, it at least is warm when we're working in there. Another problem that I didn't consider until asked (by Dave Miller) in the darkroom portraits thread was the condensation resulting from the heater. At this point I can affirm that the heater does indeed produce some condensation, but beyond that I am unsure how great of a hassle that is going to be. I'll have more to say on that after the place is operational, I'm sure.

With the fans in place and the electrical boxes roughed in with wires to them, I started to realize that I had been seriously remiss in digging a trench. Two hundred feet later, I barely beat the frozen ground. Good thing I didn't wait any longer. I used direct burial cable to go from the meter to the box, and just today we finally connected the final few feet. The problem was I didn't realize I need conduit, and after I realized I needed it, I still didn't know exactly what it was or how it was supposed to be arranged...

So I went to the hardware store. Actually, there were a lot of trips to the hardware store, and many of them sound like this, but I'll spare you most of them and just give you this one... At the hardware store, I looked for conduit. Well, they have PVC conduit, they have flexible metal conduit, they have rigid metal conduit, they have sizes from 3/4" to 2" and even larger, they have sweep elbows, they have 90 degree elbows with removable backplates so you can make the turn with the wire (direct burial entry wire is some stiff stuff, not easy to work with...), you get the picture. I didn't know what I need, and neither did anybody at the store. So I went back and looked at the project, asked the guy who actually knows something about building what we needed, and went back to the hardware store. Bought a bunch of stuff, hoped it would work, and got close, but then realized that somehow I was supposed to connect this conduit to the breaker box, and went back looking for that fitting. Miracle of miracles, found that one first time, and so off I went to install the entry wire all the way into the breaker box with the competent help of the aforementioned guy.

Incidentally, without the knowledgeable guy, this project would have been dead before it started. I'd have been lucky to even get the framing done before my pension ran out, having never done anything like this before...but I digress. Suffice it to say, if you're doing something major, get some professional help unless you really do know what you're doing, unlike me.

So where are we now? Well, the wood paneling is in, the electrical fittings are in, we still need to install the grounding rods, build a skirting frame, insulate and sheet the skirting frame, install flooring, install counters and sink, connect to the power at the power pole, and blast off. It sounds so easy...

Post # 63! Woohoo! Watch out laz...here I come.

[Monophoto]

Additional thoughts:

ceiling - I used 2'x4' ceiling tiles in a metal grid. Makes it possible to get into the ceiling if necessary, cost is reasonable, and installation is painless. And because it's white, it's easy to control white and safe lighting.

telephone - I've always had one so that I can answer if no one else is at home when someone calls.

intercom - if your DR is 200' from the house, seems to me that an intercom to enable your spouse to communicate with you (dinner is ready, you've been out there too long and the kids would really like to see you, etc) would be convenient.

[gordrob]

ICeiling - I have done the same as Monophoto and used a suspended ceiling with a 2x4 grid. My ceiling is only 7' in the darkroom so the use of the ceiling tile has allowed me to retrofit bigger enlargers when I got them (Durst L136S and AC800) in between ceiling joists to ensure I can reach the maximum head elevation. All it took was to refit the ceiling tile to allow access into the joists. You can also access the ceiling to add more wiring, cable, speaker or phone lines as required in the future.

I put all of my water lines on the wall and not in behind the walls. This has allowed me to make adjustments to the supply lines as required without having to rip into the walls to change things.

As for GFI circuits - I would put GI breakers on all the circuts in the darkroom at the breaker panel rather than just on the outlets on the wet side.

Gord

[Troy Hamon]

I've thought about the ceiling tile approach, and may opt to retrofit that way at some time in the future. The wood paneling is up at present, but isn't intended to be ceiling material and can't be installed without warping except on a solid backing. The ceiling is 8', so I don't have the issue with the enlarger space (at least not with present equipment). One issue that I am curious about...the ceiling is insulated, rather than the roof itself. If I ever were to go up into this ceiling it would be like crawling around on fiberglass, and any location that I entered the ceiling would need to have a specific insulation cutout. In this case, if I retrofit a different ceiling someday, it seems like it would be reasonable to put in a solid ceiling with a single access point rather than one that is more modular like the tiles. Am I missing something with this assumption?

We are planning to buy an intercom, though we haven't discussed telephone yet...I'm not sure a cordless phone with a base in the house would work, and I don't know much about what it would take to get the phone company to extend our service over here. But I have thought about the need for a phone, so I'll follow up on that.

All of our water lines will be visible. The water tank is inside the room, and will have water lines directly to the sink, which sits right next to the tank. The tank will have a wet bench beneath where for the rinse tray will be located when I am using large trays. Beneath that will be the silver recovery chamber.

I already didn't put gfci outlets on the dry side, but the breakers for the entire darkroom are in a circuit box in the room, and are appropriate for gfci circuits as well as regular circuits.

The counters I am using are discards from a kitchen remodel that another local guy was throwing away. I'm retrofitting the sink cutout to be an in-counter lightbox, which will be fairly close to the enlarger. Since that is where I usually mess around with my little portable lightbox, it seems like a pretty good opportunity to make my work surface less cluttered. Has anybody else tried an in-counter lightbox?

Am I missing some other obvious huge issue?

Post #64! Woohoo! Watch out laz...!

[Monophoto]

The in-counter light box is a great idea! I've thought about it but it's been pretty far down on the list of priorities.

[JHannon]

Originally Posted by Monophoto

Additional thoughts:

ceiling - I used 2'x4' ceiling tiles in a metal grid. Makes it possible to get into the ceiling if necessary, cost is reasonable, and installation is painless. And because it's white, it's easy to control white and safe lighting.

Great thread! I have been following... I have a basic plan for an area of my cellar. Maybe 8ftX11ft. I am thinking of the tiles too. Monophoto, do you find the tiles light tight? I am thinking when someone turns on the lights to the adjacent laundry room.

I am also concerned about the dust they sometimes generate. The ones I have worked with leave a lot of crumbled pieces when you remove them. Just have to be careful, I guess.

I will add lots of outlets (think of what you need and double). Ceiling mounted speakers for music too. Oh! to have a real darkroom....

[blansky]

I have darkroom that is half my garage. To save space I constructed a sink that is 13 feet long and 32 inches wide. It is made at right angles to fit into a corner so that it is really 8 feet by 5 feet x32 inches.

Since I print mainly 20x24s I stack the trays on one end and have dev,stop, fix1,fix2 and permawash in an area of about 32x35 inches.

That way I easily have room for a 20x24 syphon wash, and 20x24 archival washer. I built a plexi stand so the syphon tray is elevator over the drain hole and I built a plexi stand so that the archival washer sits up high enough to slide a 20x24 tray for selenium under it.

If you get creative you can decrease the size of the sink area. Under the sink I have a 20x24 drymount press, bottle storage, and drying racks.


Michael

[jp80874]

Originally Posted by Troy Hamon

We are planning to buy an intercom, though we haven't discussed telephone yet...I'm not sure a cordless phone with a base in the house would work, and I don't know much about what it would take to get the phone company to extend our service over here. But I have thought about the need for a phone, so I'll follow up on that.

I already didn't put gfci outlets on the dry side, but the breakers for the entire darkroom are in a circuit box in the room, and are appropriate for gfci circuits as well as regular circuits.

Am I missing some other obvious huge issue?

Phone: Its obviously a personal decision. One person mentioned in an earlier thread that he was surprised to find that his cordless lit up in the dark. Talk about an unwanted guest. I find the call an interruption of the thought process or possibly it may catch you in the midst of a mechanical process that will ruin your work if interrupted or delayed. “Oh, I’ll just let the film go on developing while you talk for half an hour”.

I’m retired, but my wife is still working. A lot of people call and want me to take an elaborate message for her. Ever try writing in the dark? I just leave the answering machine on and let her play it when she gets home. Side benefit. I’ve never given her the wrong information.

gfci outlets: You just never know where that water is going to go. The best laid plans, etc. I bought a siphon that had a springy hose that shot fixer everywhere until I cleaned up and threw out the siphon. The electrician told me if you wire all the outlets in a series only the first and last have to be gfi to have them all work that way. I haven’t tested that, but it makes sense to me. Put in four times the outlets you think you need. I did double and was adding outlets a year later. In 65 years I have never worked on a project that evolved so much as I learned in the darkroom’s three year life.

Good luck and enjoy.
John Powers

[Monophoto]

JHannon: the ceiling tiles I used are definitely light tight. Yes, they do generate a lot of grit (I chose that word intentionally - the residue from ceiling tiles is very abrasive), but that's only from being handled. I haven't seen any evidence of post-construction junk from them.

Michael: would love to see pictures of your set up. I am lusting for the ability to make prints larger than the 11x14 size that I designed my sink for, and your setup may give me some ideas.

John - ah, yes - the "kept man" syndrome. Actually, that's my situation also. GFCIs come in two forms. One design has the GFCI functionality built into a circuit breaker and is intended for installation in the circuit breaker panel. This design protects the entire circuit it is associated with. The other design is built into a receptacle. These can be installed to protect only the things plugged into themselves, or to protect everything from the GFCI to the end of the circuit on which it is installed. I have never seen one that required a second GFCI receptacle at the end of the circuit.