I'm building my personal Gaming Room...

[leonk]

About metric in Canada: they switched back in the late 80's AFAIK.

As a matter of fact, the US is still the only country in the world that uses something else.....

As far as building codes are concerned, and purchasing most items, you are correct.  Gas is sold in Liters, food by the Kg, and the speed signs on the road is in KM/H.  ***BUT*** all building supplies and raw material is still imperial (i.e. same system as in the USA).  For example, a typical piece of wood is a 2x4x8 (2 inches by 4 inches by 8 feet long).  All measurements and plans are in feet and inches as well.  It kind of sucks, because it's not as precise as metric (especially doing devision and conversion!) but you get used to it.

Most of the wood Canada produces goes to the USA (it's our #1 export) .. so I guess that's why this industry uses this older system.  It feels weird to measure and cut wood in meters. 

[level42]

The really weird thing is that we use the inch and foot for certain things as well, although not really as a measurement but more as an "indication".

Everybody (in transport) knows what a 20' and a 40' container is. Never mentioned in metric.
Wheels of cars and bikes are still inches too.

Even worse: TV diagonals always used to be in cm. here, and mostly they still are. However for computer monitors, everybody used and uses inches from the very start of computing....weird !
But now, you start seeing inch sizes on TV advertisements !!!

But we're drifting off...anyway, I knew about the "switch to metric" in Canada because I recently saw a TV program about the Gimli Glider. One of the causes of this near catastrophe was errors made in fueling the plane because of the switch to metric...amazing story by the way !

[Etienne MacGyver]

... It feels weird to measure and cut wood in meters.  

Thats exactly the opposite for us , we feel strange when we look at the "wrong side" of the measurement tape  

[level42]

The inch systems wouldn't be so bad if an inch would be divided in 100 parts and not that everything is 3/4", 5/8" or 8/64" !!!

I mean, who can actually "feel" what those sizes are. It's especially irritating with hex nuts and bolts they really use this myriad of sizes.
In metric it's simple: 3, 4, 5, 6, mm. Sometimes there are sizes "in between" like 3.5 and 4.5 but those are rare.

I'm very happy to have such a measure tape (and it was hard as hell to find one here!) though for when I need only have the inch sizes at hand.

[ckong]

.....But with things like modern hard foam like rigid phenolic insulants....
[/quote]

Do you have a brand name? Or a website? could be interesting for my gameroom, which I still have to insulate.

[Q*ris]

Do you have a brand name? Or a website? could be interesting for my gameroom, which I still have to insulate.

+1
I don't have a gameroom atm but I'm gathering a lot of info to build a small one and hope to have it ready by the end of 2011.

[Superully]

I don't have a gameroom atm but I'm gathering a lot of info

[copy & paste] I don't have a gameroom atm but I'm gathering a lot of info games

still on the lookout for my gigantonormous gameroom i'm going to need!

[Q*ris]

[copy & paste] I don't have a gameroom atm but I'm gathering a lot of info games

Sad but true, I already have to many games for the gameroom I'm planning to build in one year...

[Sonic 1992]

Nuno, how do you heat the lair? Electric heaters?  I can't imagine you'll be installing a gas furnace into the building.  And if you do use electric heaters, how do you maintain constant humidity? Or at least comfortable levels? (If I didn't have a central humidifier on my gas furnace, the humidity in the house drops to about 20%, which is drier than the Sahara desert! Bad for skin, static electricity, and overall comfort levels)

To be honest, I don't know yet which solution I'll take, but I'm thinking about something like this (air conditioner) 



Used by Bally Ballo on his huge game room [see this topic (french)]

That looks suspiciously like this...


Remember all the trouble I had with my unit? 

Please research the unit very carefully before purchasing!  I don't want you to go through all the BS that I had to endure!   

[level42]

Refresh our memories Sonic, got a link ?

I'm about to get an airco as well....(well as soon as temps are reasonable again)....

[Etienne MacGyver]

https://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=252.0
I think this is what you are looking for Andre..

(skip to "UPDATE: 10 -4- 07..... Why there have been no recent updates....")

[level42]

Yeah that unit was definitly too small for a large room like that PLUS you have to account for the heat being generated by the cabs....
A system that size will do for my situation though....

I think the biggest problem was having it installed professionally. If the coolant leads are not de-aired properly, and the system hasn't been checked for leaks, you're guaranteed to get trouble.

I wouldn't want to pay the bill of your energy company though (over here) Sonic

[level42]

I just bought this to keep an eye on the temps and humidity in my gameroom (and in my living room as a bonus ):



You hang the display unit in your home and the remote (normally outside) in the gameroom.

The rather special thing is that this does both temperature and humidity (hygrometer) from the remote unit, most likewise devices have only remote temp units.

In the US it's sold as the Honeywell TM005X. The only advantage that the Honeywell has is that the remote has a tiny display indicating the values measured so you can also see it there locally, but that's not a big issue for me.

[vib_ribbon]

neat, don't seem to be able to find a stockist in UK though.

[level42]

Received it today. The base unit is HUGE, much larger than I expected.(It's about the size of a hand).

I had the remote and base next to each other and the readings settled after about 30 minutes and were very close to eachother.

Just put the remote in the gameroom....

The temperature now is 13.9 degr.C and (even more important) humidity 42%. Sounds like very healthy for the cabs, in fact, temp can be a bit lower for me...outside temp is around 0 degrees C right now. Let's see what it does later in the evening.