Reinforcing Floor Joists For Aquarium
Hey everyone i have a 75 gallon tank with a 20 gallon long underneath my house was built in 1985 and was wondering if the structure built in the 1980 s is.
Reinforcing floor joists for aquarium. A house built 40 50 years ago wasn t built to the same codes as a modern home. I have a 75 gallon in a 1907 house on the first floor with a basement underneath. We used cinder blocks to reinforce the floor supports aka joists under the thing my buddy doesnt keep fish but his gun safe is a whopping 3500 pounds he had a crawlspace we had to reinforce from the door to its final resting place. Long spans of joists in newer homes may wobble or bounce from foot traffic.
I think anything more than a 125 180 on a second floor wood frame you may want to consider reinforcing the joists below of which there are many ways to do such. The aquarium will most likely end up weighing somewhere around 1500 1600 pounds when full and will be over a 6 x1 5 area on the floor. However a few factors to keep in mind. The basement has a concrete floor.
Whats people lookup in this blog. So this 6 ft by 12 ft portion of the floor was designed to safely support a total live load of at least 6 ft x 12 ft x 40 psf 2880 pounds total and may actually be much stronger than that as discussed above. This is my first home and first project like this. After several centuries of service floor joists in older homes may sag or crack.
How to make floor joists stronger. As this is intended to be permanent should we pour a concrete platform in the ground below the floor to place any needed jacks braces etc upon. This also varies greatly by the type of construction age of the house building materials etc etc etc. I bought a four foot long piece of steel i beam from a scrap yard and put it across the 3 joists under it.
Yes tank across the main floor joists not parallel. Ive had to reinforce floors for both aquariums and their next heaviest cousin the gun safe. The aquarium is oriented perpendicular to the joists and my floor framing is wood joists spanning 12 ft. Realistically assuming this can be done safely if at all what is our best option for reinforcing the floor.
A depression era home would be even worse. The tank runs along an exterior wall but runs parallel to the joists. My tentative plan is to double up the floor joists around the area of the tank pour a small concrete footing and use jacks to support the added weight. Reinforcing floor for aquarium.
Reinforcing joists with plywood reinforcing floor joists a concord carpenter stiffening a floor fine homebuilding got bounce part 2 how to fix a floor deflection in an existing. The age of the house.