Think My Bedroom Can Take 2 Tanks?

[crackmonkey]

I have a Juwel 240 and was thinking about getting a Juwel 400 too in my upstairs bedroom, but will the floor not cave in or something?

 

[Tolak]

It depends on the construction of the house. If there is a way you can check the size of the floor joists, as well as the spacing, it will tell you what load the floor can handle. In any case, with a larger tank you want the stand to span as many joists as possible, and as close as possible to an outside or interior support wall.

If there is any sort of crawl space on the same level as your bedroom, you may be able to see the joists, or pry up a bit of the flooring to measure them. If there is no other choice, you could try this in a closet.

Tolak

 

[ncjharris]

How old is the house? What size is the room and how far apart will the tanks be? What kind of stand with the tanks be on?

Looking at it practicably;

A Juwel 240 holds 240 litres, which weighs 240kg. Likewise a 400 weighs 400kg.
[For comparison, 240kg is about 37stone - that is around 3 fully grown men and 400kg is around 5 and a small boy]

If you are using stands with point loads (i.e metal ones with leg's) then the weight will be split into four (assuming you have an even tank and floor) 60kg per leg for the smaller tank and 100kg for the larger. For a everyday comparison, the first is a little more than two people in a double bed and the second one is the weight of a moose (apparently).

In conclusion, at work we had a plyboard floor, on joists, and the max point load was 200kg within a 1.5 metre radius of the others.
Without knowing the answers to the questions above, my gut instinct would be that you would be ok, IF they were at seperate ends of the room and that the feet were positioned as best they could be on joists (as Tolak said). However, depending on the construction time this could be hard (newer houses would have joists at 600mm centres, older ones in some metric measurement - fluid ounces or something). If this is the case, you could place the stand on a sheet of 18mm ply, to distribute the load.

BUT

if you are using a stand with sides (like most 'offical' tank stands that come with tanks) you will have a bit more of a degree of error. Putting the stand so the main points of contact (front and back or sides) are perpendicular to the joists should help distribute the load.

Of course there is an easy answer to this. Move into the living room.

 

[crackmonkey]

The house is around 110 years old. The tanks would be on opposite sides of the room is about 15 foot by 10. The tank would be on an Juwel stand like the 240 litre is.

 

[Adistar]

My house is more than a 100 yrs old, and i have a 55 gal, 20 gal, 10, and a couple 5's.

this is US gallons, but that is still alot of pressure on a 2nd story house. and i also have a lot of furniature lol.


good luck

Josh

 

[Dragonscales]

If you are a bit worried about the weight try getting hold of stands that don't use legs, I.E. have a flat bottom that contacts the floor. This should distribute the weight evenly along the floor rather than placing all the pressure where the legs would sit.

EDIT: Oops, just saw ncjharris covered this a bit in their post )

 

[The-Wolf]

if you are in any doubt get a qualified chartered surveyor or a council buildings inspector to have a look at the floor and give his/her professional opinion.
It may cost you a bit, but thats going to be cheaper than re-building the floor and cleaning up after 50gallons of water damage.

 

[ncjharris]

if you are in any doubt get a qualified chartered surveyor or a council buildings inspector

[snapback]908242[/snapback]​

Sound advice, but make sure its a buildings surveyor rather than a quantity, land or another surveyor.

If the stand you are talking about is the one I think it is, then that solves the flat edge issue.

Also, with a house that old, the quality of construction is usually a darn sight better than it is now. That is intermidate floors will have joist built out of the party walls, rather than being suspended on hangers that are bedded into the mortar. The older method is a lot more hardier.

N

 

[xamdarb]

lay a peice of plywood about a inch think would be better than nothing but old houses used huge boards so you should be good