wooden floors max tank size

[clubbing80s]

Hi.

Im renting in a small "lock wood home" that has wooden floors under the carpets and vynel in the kitchen.

Im used to living in houses with concreate floors so the weight of fish tanks is not an issue. Im wandering what the max size / weight wooden floors will carry?

Im going to remove the feet from my tank stand and putting planks on so that the weight will be spread across the floor boards as aposed to a all the weight on a couple.

Thanks

[Caryl]

Depends on the age of the house. Best to put tanks over 4ft crosswise to the main joists and against a load bearing wall.

We have wooden floors and have never considered the tank weight (280kg) to be a problem (although I think there is an extra pile under our main tank as it was where the fireplace was to originally go). Think of the weight of 3 or 4 large footy boys sitting on your sofa then think of the tank weight.

Do you have a large chest freezer? Have you ever had it full? I imagine, if you had, it would weigh more than even a large aquarium.

[hovmoller]

Yeah direction of your floor board is less important. It's much more important to place the tank across the floor joists underneath the floor and as caryl mentioned if you can place it close to the support that these joist sit on.

IMO if you can achieve the above you can easily keep a standard 4 foot tank (1200x600x600mm)

[clubbing80s]

Thanks for the info.

My big tank is against the center wall in the kitchen . I put it there on the asumption the appliances as suggested a chedt freezer would go there. And water spills are easier to manage .

From what i understand the house is about 7year old.

I have a spare room Im considering putting down plywood boards around the edge of the room this would spread the load over a much bigger area and catch small spills . Would be my office n fish room

On the other have the wow factor for ppl arriving at the front door and looking into the big tank would be gone lol.

[F15hguy]

a 75kg shrimp like me jumping up and stomping as hard as I can onto the middle of a board would put approx 1000kg of force onto a small area (according to the pub hammer game), could be fun to try after a couple anyways, just expect a few sideways glances from swmbo

[GrahamC]

If you can crawl under the house, you could see if there are concrete piles near by.

[clubbing80s]

If you can crawl under the house, you could see if there are concrete piles near by.

Will do .

[Sheepsnana]

I will check my copy of 3604 when I get back to work tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure most floor joists are set up to take a minimum of 2kPa. This works out to be 200kg per square metre.

[alanmin4304]

That is live load is it not?

[Sheepsnana]

As I said, I will have to check, but I think it is 1kPa DEAD load and 2kPa LIVE load. Sorry, meant to specify the two earlier.

For those who aren't sure of terminology... DEAD load means your not moving it. LIVE load is like someone walking through the lounge, they're not going to be in the same spot for a long period of time.

[alanmin4304]

An Aquarium is dead load (except in Christchurch)

[Hamstar99]

The majority of houses are setup for 1.5k loads. 2k loads are for decks etc that get wet all the time. However its not really relevant as those loads are mostly taken up by the support structures itself anyway. Any load bearing walls will have a double joist running under it -albeit running the same way as the wall- or they should have a row of pile under them if going across the joists.

Being a lockwood you probably want have any load bearing internal walls but what would be ideal -like has already been said- try and position near a bearer line, that is the support for the joists. Try and avoid being in the middle of a joist span. If you are really worried you can climb under the house and install an extra bearer. You wouldnt need to concrete in any piles but just chock it up firmly under the joists. cheers.