My husband has a weight bench and weights set in our 1st floor bedroom that I would LOVE to get moved to another rooom! Our sons have recently moved out so I am looking to move his workout area to an upstairs bedroom if all goes well.
My husband is worried that the hundreds (approx. 800lbs, could be close to 1000lbs including bench and all) of pounds of equipment should not be on the second floor without extra support to the floor of some kind. Because the weight stand holds so much weight in a small sq footage area he is concerned it would warp or sag the flooring eventually with time.
Is this something we should be concerned about?
If so what can we do to prevent a problem?
I'd like to ad that I live in Texas and unfortunately we do not have basements here. We have a game room on the second floor and hired an engineer to advise us on getting a 9 foot pool table (thousands of pounds) placed in the game room. Fortunately the game room is directly above our garage so with the engineers direction we were able to get supports built to aid in holding the weight without worry for damage or injury. There is no garage under the bedrooms so I'm doubting this will work out:( but I just thought I'd get advice before losing hope!
I certainly wish we would have considered these type things when we purchased our home 5 years ago!! Next house will certainly be a one floor residence for sure!
I think I'd just leave it all on the first floor. Why would you want to haul a half o' ton of stuff upstairs? It's hard enough to take laundry up there, lol.
Houses are usually designed for distributed load vs. a point load. That's a TON of weight he's talking about. You'd have to know more about the yield strength of the wood, but possibly putting it over a wall on the first floor, or a story column (such as a support pole) would help. I'd pull the permits on your houses from the housing department and see what the deal is - your ouse might not even be up to code, and you need to know that. In fact, most people put their weights in the basement and not even on the first floor because of this. (I got this from a structural civil engineer in the construction business - I'm not entirely that smart!)
Yes.
We have a piano on our 2nd floor, it is placed where the support beam is, under the floor. It is a weight bearing structural, support beam. A Professional told us, where to put the piano.
Just leave it, where it is, as D. below said.
Do you have blueprints for your home and can read them?
It would say, how that 2nd floor is constructed.
Get a licensed Contractor. If you pursue this.
**Adding This:
Ya know, another thing to consider is: If the workout/bench/weights are upstairs... whenever your Husband is working out and clanging around with his weights... it will or may, cause NOISE down below to the first floor. Repetitive clanging, each time he lifts and then puts down his weights.
That would be irritating.
The best thing you can do is leave it on the first floor. That's the best way to prevent the problem. Preventing the sagging upstairs can be done, but why would you want to pay to do that?
D.
Your second floor is no more or less sound than the first floor. We have a 300 gallon fish tank upstairs, the tank alone weighs over four hundred pounds, add water and it dwarfs your weight bench.
Do you know anything about the structure of your home? Specifically which way the joists run? Generally speaking they run the width of the home not the length but some homes are wonky. What you want is the weight to be distributed across multiple joists.
Basically the structure of your interior is set upon I beams in your basement. The joists radiate out from there. On top of the I beams would be the weight bearing walls for a second floor with joists radiating out from there.
So if you can imagine taking two benches and placing 2x4s across them. Now you are going to place a heavy box on that. Would you set in on two 2x4s, in other words along a joist, or would you put it so that it sits across three or four 2x4s, across the joists.
Sorry if I rambled a bit, my brain shut down an hour ago.
Okay! After reading your what happened I have never dealt with a home with no basement, they don't exist here. I could assume it is the same structure as what we build here but I don't know for sure.
I'm a general contractor. You know, even if you have the plans for your house, you can't always be sure that the house was built to plan anyhow. If you live in a housing development, I will tell you that a LOT of homes have lots of code issues, even if they were built recently. Generally speaking, when the building inspector comes through, he'll check one or two houses, and assume the rest of them are built the same way. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. We flip houses, and we have found some horrifying things, even in relatively new homes.
That being said, if you absolutely must put the weight bench upstairs, I'd pull up the carpet and subfloor in the room and verify that your floor joists are where they're supposed to be, and depending upon the size of them, you may even want to sister them in the area under the weight bench. That's a lot of work, though. (How handy are you? ;) Depends if you really think it will be worth it.
My hubby has a degree in Construction Science. He said your plan is risky at best. Like Catherine mentioned, there is no guarantee your house was built to plan, so you have no idea where the supports are. 1000 lbs is A LOT of weight. He wouldn't recommend what you'd like to do.
And I didn't ask him, but here in Texas, we are notorious for having shifting ground and foundation problems (which is one of the many reasons we don't have basements here). I wonder if this much weight on the second floor would compromise your house even more?
Nope, I wouldn't do it without having a structural engineer take a look first. You're in Texas and have no basement, so if your house is slab on grade, the first floor sits on a nice solid concrete pad. That sounds like a better place for a weight set.
You have to add the weight of your husband to the equipment and consider that the weights might get moved around. So locating the set over a structural beam won't guarantee that they stay in their designated spot. Plus, even if the floor joists don't fail, the weight could cause deflection, twisting of the joists if not braced properly and problems with connections. It's not worth the worry, talk to your engineer.
I would get a structural engineer to come look at it. You can look in the yellow pages or search for structural engineer, residential. You can also call around to the various cities in our area and ask for the building inspectors. A lot of them will do consulting on the side and give you some advice.
Good luck!
