floor load

[wjake]

I want to set up my 185 gallon on the 2nd floor of the house. I had it set up on the 3rd floor of our apartment in Ohio when we lived there but it was built like a tank to commercial standards including a concreete floor which our house does not have.

What is the max floor load that residential flooring can hold here in GA assuming the stand is 68" by 24" and the length spans the beams not runs along 2 of them IE. perpendicular to the beams

any help from anyone with knowledge in this area?

 

[myvwrock]

i know if you run the tank perpendicular to the floor joust that helps distribute the weight.

 

[swfk44]

well you're looking at 1500 lbs just in water weight, add rock and sand, of course that displaces water but may be heavier than the water itself. keep in mind that i had a king size waterbed in my mobile home years ago, put something under the stand to further displace the weight, bigger foot print. if you put a piece of plywood under the stand and place the stand on top of the plywood it will spread the weight over more square inches than the stand frame alone, hope all this helps. a women high heel is like 300lbs per square inch, figure that into your math. :bubba:

 

[06strom]

I went through this somewhat recently when i decided to put a 140g + 40g sump in my 2nd story living room. It is over the garage. My final solution was to place it against the outside wall, and shorten the span of the joists with 6x6 column supports. I haven't measured any deflection in the floor (yet).

A friend has a 220g on his wood floor, over a crawl space. He added support columns, but after 4 years or so, a joist cracked and the floor became unlevel. We had to jack the floor up and add another column.

Here are a couple links I used that I factored heavily into my decision on how I braced my floor & placed the aquarium...

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/aquarium_weight.php">http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/aquarium_weight.php</a>
[IMG]http://www.southernpine.com/spantables.shtml">http://www.southernpine.com/spantables.shtml</a>
[IMG]http://www.awc.org/technical/spantables/tutorial.htm">http://www.awc.org/technical/spantables/tutorial.htm</a>

Good luck!

 

[grouper therapy]

It is hard to answer your question since we don't know the type of joist that was used in the construction, the span of that joist or what is directly underneath the floor. As well as some engineered floors are designed for specific uses such as kitchen/ bath floors are sometimes beefed up to handle the load of mud base and ceramic type tile.
I would suggest having a licensed contractor at least take a look at it and guide you with obtaining the correct info to calculate with. You can figure the average total weight is around 10lbs per gallon

 

[ryuchi]

Dont forget to add sump tank weight, unless you can run the sump on the first floor :yes:

wjake;533921 wrote: I want to set up my 185 gallon on the 2nd floor of the house. I had it set up on the 3rd floor of our apartment in Ohio when we lived there but it was built like a tank to commercial standards including a concreete floor which our house does not have.

What is the max floor load that residential flooring can hold here in GA assuming the stand is 68" by 24" and the length spans the beams not runs along 2 of them IE. perpendicular to the beams

any help from anyone with knowledge in this area?

 

[mikesommers]

Im in on this.

 

[rbredding]

design loads don't really help you when considering residential construction..


your best bet is to figure out how the floor is made (2x8's, 2x10's or 2x12's) and what the on-center spacing is.. (use a stud finder on the ceiling under the floor you're considering)

more than likely, if the house is less than 10 years old.. the floors are constructed out of composite joists.. (look like 1/2" fiber board in the center with 2"X2" plywood blocks at the top and bottom)... you should be able to pull the design characteristics up online somewhere for these joists.. (I believe "silentjoist" is one of the name brands)

in any case.. you'll probably need to reinforce the ceiling in the room under the tank (given the size of the tank you're asking about)

 

[myvwrock]

The best thing would be to get a structural engineer out at you house to take a look at the floor.

 

[mikesommers]

myVWrock;534191 wrote: The best thing would be to get a structural engineer out at you house to take a look at the floor.

Where do we find one of these?:unsure:

 

[myvwrock]

engineering consulting firm.....my dad is a Electrical engineer, he might know some one I will ask him in the morning.

 

[mikesommers]

The reason I am in on this, I am in process of a large build myself. I am on a crawl space, with plans of 200+ gallons. So anything I can pick up is good. Dont need any holes in my floor! I am most likely going to use jacks and build the stand in. I also have some members that are going to help me with pointers. There are some members out there with large tanks on a second floor.