How Big For An Upstairs Tank?

[BlueRam]

What sort of weight will the joists support on the upper floor of a house? My problem is that I can only have a tank if it goes upstairs in the office. I have worked out that I could fit a 120 wide x 40 deep x 50 high tank which is about 230 litres? I assume if loaded up, the whole tank and all the equipment could work out to be 500kg. Now I can situate this tank across 3 joists but is that too much weight to go upstairs in one place?

To me (a complete novice when coming to these things!) it should be fine. I mean, that is about 7 people standing in one area of a room.

I just dont want it landing downstairs in my lounge!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

depends on it's position in the building a bit i think, if it's above or next to structural walls it's less likely to fall through.

not quite the same as 7 people standing there, cos it'd be 7 people standing there all the time. buildings might be designed to cope with the load of lots of people, but only temporarily, i think the prolonged weight would make a difference.

Saying this I haven't a bloody clue if it'd fall down or not, I'll send my fella this topic though, he's a builder so might have a better idea

 

[andywg]

The tank is unlikely to fall through, the floor joists would bow and cause the stand to bow, thus ending with a cracked tank and water on the floor.

I would not want a great deal over 130 Imp gallons on upstairs floors.

I did worry when I set up a 3x2x2 stacked with a 48x15x18 and a 24x12x12 sump upstairs but then thought about my 6x2x2 which only has 4x2 as the main construction. The floor joist are either 8x2 or 10x2 so should hold 150 imp gallons ok. Just make sure you run across joists and try and get near a wall.

 

[PaulEbs]

Hey,

I have recently exchanged my 30 gallon for a 40 gallon, which also has about 10 gallons worth of weight just in the stand and glass for the tank! Anywho, the tank is upstairs, but all we did to help the joists a little was to buy a sheet of strong wood, a little bigger than the tank's base stand, and put it under the carpet.

the tank isn't even next to a main support wall - it's next to the stairs! but no problems so far.

 

[bobf]

What sort of weight will the joists support on the upper floor of a house? My problem is that I can only have a tank if it goes upstairs in the office. I have worked out that I could fit a 120 wide x 40 deep x 50 high tank which is about 230 litres? I assume if loaded up, the whole tank and all the equipment could work out to be 500kg. Now I can situate this tank across 3 joists but is that too much weight to go upstairs in one place?

To me (a complete novice when coming to these things!) it should be fine. I mean, that is about 7 people standing in one area of a room.

I just dont want it landing downstairs in my lounge!

Look at it this way - is your bath upstairs?

Bath plus water, ducks, self (partner...ahem )could add up to a pretty big fish tank in my book!

Just make sure wherever you place it it goes accross a few joists rather than along them. May also be appropriate to place the stand on timber (like a spare floorboard) if existing floorboards have any 'give' in them.

 

[RandyK47]

Certainly make sure it sits across several joists rather than just on one or between joists. Having said that, not all joists are created equally. Some older houses aren't built with today's standards and, then again, some older homes are built better than todays. If I were you I'd want to know what joists are in place, how they run, and the spacing between. What's called "live floor loading" is all based on the above. I had 40 US gallons upstairs sitting across joists on a stand and I never saw any hint of failure. Not sure I'd want to go more than 55 or 60 gallons unless I had an engineer take a look and say it was OK.

 

[anvil63]

I,ve had a 150gal on my second floor for about a year. No problems yet. I cleared it with the architect though.

Carl

 

[Tolak]

http/badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html

 

[NAL]

Look at it like this for you calculation-1 litre or water weighs ~1 kg, so I'd be surprised if your tank would get up to 500 kg - 1/2 a metric ton!. Can three people stand close together on a floor without a collapse? I think so. That would equate to the kind of weight you might be talking about. Load-bearing capacity of a static load on a floor is pretty high-would be quite different if you bounced the same load up and down on it though! Follow the above adivce about spacing it across as many joists and so on and it should be fine. (not that i'm accepting responsiblity if it isn't!) Failing that, call a structural engineer for his opinion.

Nick