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Old 01/26/2005, 09:56 AM
j0tca j0tca is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Montreal
Posts: 878
*sigh*

clkwrk, "As a matter of fact the manufacture of my home told me to take the width of the tank x the length of the joist x 50 and thats what my floor can hold "

This is not true, I'm sorry you were told this, but it's simply not true. Wood is a lot stronger than you think. The truth is that how much weight a floor can hold depends more of the specific house, age, and location of the tank than anything else. If you want to get into specifics, get a proffesional opinion, do not trust a "well my brother's friend's fiance's dad was once a carpenter", or "my house manufacturer told me.." story.

If you are really interested, I have a book somewhere with specific load constants in it that we can use to figure out actually what your floor can hold. You would need to figure out what kind of joists you have though and their spacing (it's not always standard despite what people would like to tell you)

Personally I think it would be interesting, but the weight of a tank is far less than the failure point of most floors. If your house is at least somewhat modern (built after 1970), you have no problem. There is a reason you have never heard of someone's tank falling through their floor.

Oh, and jumping up and down does give you a VERY good idea as to the status of a floor. You can tell if the joists are moving. Remeber that change of momentum=force out your high school physics class. If you feel no movement after jumping up and down, the floor is still structurally sound.

Will