Can I Put This Fish Tank Upstairs?

[Miss Wiggle]

It’s fairly regular on here to be asked ‘Can I put an X gallon tank upstairs?’

Standard advice is that no one on here can tell you for sure, without looking at the plans for your house and inspecting the conditions (with the help of some professional qualifications) we can’t possibly predict what load the house will support and what will send it crashing through the ceiling. There are simply too many variables, and when you consider the serious nature of the consequences if it did come through the ceiling then the safest thing is to consult a structural engineer before putting it up there.

There are a few things you can do to mitigate the effects, put some ply under the tank to spread the weight across several joists, place the tank by an outside wall, but these can’t magically make your house able to support any weight you choose.

Now if we’re just talking about a little 35litre tank then you can be confident that your house will support it, but it’s difficult to know where to draw the line of what is safe and what isn’t.

I work for a Structural Engineering consultancy, so I thought I’d stick a question on our discussion forum and get some professional advice on what is considered ‘relatively’ safe and at what point you should consider getting professional advice.

The responses are below,

Disclaimer - This is just general advice, it is not based on the specifics of your house or of anyone else’s, every house is different so if you are at all unsure then you should definitely consult a professional.

First answer – I would feel comfortable with anything up to the region of 250 litres upstairs without worrying.

Second Answer - it's normal to double up floor joists under a bath, so if your fish tank is approaching the size of a bath you need professional help.

I like the second answer best, slight double meaning there I think!!!

Will post up anymore replies as they come in.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

askd how much a bath weighs and got this answer

If you assume a normal bath is about 1700mm long x 600mm wide x 500mm deep and then take off around 100mm each end to allow for the edge of the bath then your looking at around,

1.6x0.5x0.5 = 0.4 cubic meters of water x 100kg/m3 = 400kg for an absoutely brimming bath.

Pretty massive fish tank.

Like [name removed] says it's normal to double the floor joists under baths to allow for the extra weight, there are plenty of houses where they haven't though and the baths don't end up on the floor below.

It would also depend on where you're planning to put the tank, for example right in the middle of the floor would be worse than at the edge as the floor joists have to carry the load further away from the supporting walls.

 

[monkeywobbler]

I think fishkeeping is one of the more healthy obsessions you could possibly have!
I'm not convinced my tiny house can manage the bath at the mo - we had a major leak while changing the plumbing and endedup with water running down the inside of the kitchen windows downstairs
Took a lot of towels to mop up that mess, I can tell you

 

[maximinimus]

Great advice MW.

I have 180l in my bedroom and I would be comfortable with 4x that (if I had the space).

We have solid floors upstairs and a 12x24 concrete joist with a 24x24 column downstairs.

On the other side, one of my friends has a fairly new house (built in the last 10 years). He has a suspended floor with large sheets of MDF rather than proper floor boards. He is only 5'4" and cant weigh more than 60kg yet he managed to go straight through the floor just walking on it. I wouldn't trust a 35 litre tank on that over time

Really I suppose there are too many variables to give a single answer to suit everyone.

 

[monkeywobbler]

Yeah, mine's MDF flooring too. I think my house was built in the 70's though. I really don't trust it's weight bearing capacity but it's done alright so far with my fairy elephant husband bouncing about on it!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Really I suppose there are too many variables to give a single answer to suit everyone.

absolutely, but just trying to get a general feel for where you need to be concered and what you can assume pretty much every house will be able to support.

 

[monkeywobbler]

It's a really valid topic, MW. Not so much for the people that have smaller tanks upstairs, but definitely for the people that have gargantuan tanks that could cause real damage if something bad happened.

 

[spesh]

MW - I'd be curious what your (and your collegues) thoughts were on Timber frame/Self build houses. I'm looking at a few at the moment that are the 'common these days' townhouse with a block built garage and timber frame house on top.

 

[shelaghfishface]

what brilliant idea MW,

 

[Miss Wiggle]

MW - I'd be curious what your (and your collegues) thoughts were on Timber frame/Self build houses. I'm looking at a few at the moment that are the 'common these days' townhouse with a block built garage and timber frame house on top.

my personal view is i wouldn't have one if you paid me!!!

I'm not an engineer though so couldn't give any professional type advice. I just nag the engineers about filling the right forms in doing risk assesments and such like.

 

[spesh]

Hehe, I know what you mean. They are not always the best but due to the current market there are some remarkably good deals emerging for newbuilds that make it tempting, especially added to the general 'efficiency' of running a new build vs this old stone built property I live in now

 

[Miss Wiggle]

another response

Don't forget that downstairs floors can be suspended too (so you could have the same criteria as upstairs). Not all 'Ground Floors' are ground-bearing.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

really good reply

The design imposed loading for a domestic building is 1.5kN/m² = 150kg/m²

the __kg/m² can easily be worked out………..1ltr of water being 1kg.

Get the liter capacity of the tank (lets call this x)

Get the pan area in meter squared = width x lengths (lets call this y)

Divide x by y (x/y)

If the answer is less than 150 no problem….

Example

Lets say the tank is 200ltrs = 200kg’s

The plan area is say 100cm by 50cm (1m by 0.5m) = 0.5m²

200kg/0.5m² = 400kg/m² too much load

You can work back to calculate the area required for 200litre to imposed a load of 150kg/m²

200kg/150kg = 1.33m²

 

[BigIan]

Hehe, I know what you mean. They are not always the best but due to the current market there are some remarkably good deals emerging for newbuilds that make it tempting, especially added to the general 'efficiency' of running a new build vs this old stone built property I live in now

DON`T DO IT!!!!!
especially if its one of the big house builders like redrow, wimpy ect.
I`ve worked on a few of there sights and they are cheap houses, VERY cheap. and no quality control either,
i was on one job and one of the lads put up a stud wall that looked like he`d cut the timber with his teeth huge gaps in the noggins, nothing square or plumb..

i`ve seen roof trusses with a palette under each corner to keep it out of the mud and just left there for a couple of weeks in the wind and rain so it sagges then when they came to use it turned it over and put some weight on it to bend it back.....

NEVER touch a new build......

 

[Miss Wiggle]

just done some calculations on the equation given above, according to that you can put bugger all upstairs

not even a 3x1x1 (I've done that before, and a 4x1x1, Ian had a 4x18"x2 upstairs in his old house) is classed as 'safe'. I think that's a testament to how poor new builds really are if that's the minumum requirements for them.