#Huge fish tanks full#
#Huge fish tanks plus#

#Huge fish tanks full#

Rotten, decaying beams caused by a damp basement, leaking pipes, or a past flood will be soft, brittle, and unable to support a full load. This is because termites eat through beams, causing them to be weak.

Wooden beams can have termite damage, even if the insects were removed years ago. The old logs may even have tree bark on them! If your house is really old, you may find beams made of logs. The addition of a room or renovation of the kitchen or bathroom may have required the beams to be notched or cut away to make room for drain pipes. HVAC systems were not originally installed in older-style buildings.Īdding ducts and air-handling equipment sometimes requires floor joists and beams to be cut away or “notched” to make room for the installation. It is common for a home to be modified, especially if it is over 20 years old. Is your old home safe?Įven though your home was designed by an architect and constructed to meet building codes, it may not be “in code” today. The safety factor ensures that if you load in 1000 pounds of stuff, the floor is designed to hold 1500 to 2000 pounds.īut this does not automatically guarantee the floor in your home can support a heavy aquarium. The important thing to know is a large safety factor is built into the building construction code. Because no one really knows how much weight is going to sit on every square foot of the home, it is averaged out across the entire floor. Keep in mind that this psf rating is based on the weight being spread out throughout the entire floor. The live load rating for the typical apartment or home first floor is 40 psf. But what about other heavy stuff like furniture, people, and aquariums?Įngineers also plan for the “live load.” This is the weight of items like the refrigerator, stove, furniture, and even an aquarium.īuilding codes specify live load ratings on the type of room, size, and construction materials.

Structural engineers have calculated that the dead load has a force of about 10 to 15 pounds per square foot.

#Huge fish tanks plus#

This includes the floor itself plus walls, plumbing, tiles, and other building materials. The dead load is everything that is permanently built into the home. Dead and live loadsĪll this engineering is designed to safely support your home’s “dead load.” These load-bearing supports make sure the floor does not sag under the people’s weight, inner walls, showers, cabinets, and so on. Homes without a basement use shorter columns or stacks on cement blocks to provide extra support for the floor joists. The columns prevent the floor joists from sagging under the weight of the home’s interior walls, furniture, and people. These columns hold up a wooded or steel beam right under the floor joists. If your home has a basement, you’ll usually find metal supports that look like upright pipes spaced along the center of the room. The long beams alone can’t hold up the weight of the house. The floor joists ultimately support the weight of the home and everything you put in it.īut the floor joists need some support too. Engineering building codes specify joists to be installed every 16 inches.Ī plywood subfloor is nailed on top of the joists. They typically measure out to be about 2-inches thick and 8 to 10-inches wide. Wooden beams, called floor joists, are assembled into a support structure that spans the concrete block foundation on the perimeter of the building. This makes it easier to understand how all the parts of a floor work together to support a load. We should start by explaining a few important building concepts. If your house uses a traditional wooden floor or you plan on setting up your tank in an upstairs room, this article is for you! Understanding support

If your home is on a concrete slab, the first floor will be very strong and able to support the aquarium. That’s one reason why an aquarium can burst at the seams and drain within seconds. The floor can also buckle and twist, causing strain on the silicone seams that hold the tank together. Like the aquarium stand, the floor under a heavy tank has to be able to support the full weight of the aquarium. When you set up a large aquarium in your home, it puts quite a bit of weight over a small area of the floor. If the stand collapses, you’ll lose your fish and damage your home. Water, glass, and ornaments add up to a lot of weight, and you don’t want to rely on a flimsy piece of furniture to keep your aquarium secure. We’ve often discussed the importance of using a sturdy aquarium stand to support your tank.