JFrank
Member
Unlikely a safe will completely break the joist and fall through the subfloor, what’s more likely is the lower ceiling sheet rock starts to crack at the tape joints from stress of joist sagging.
500lbs safe on 2nd floor?
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danez71
Member
Not if a concrete foundation 1st floor.
Not sure who came up with the rules, but modern residential framing code specifies that non sleeping rooms be built at 40lbs per foot load rating, while sleeping rooms have to be 30lbs per foot. Its a bit of an assumption that first floor rooms are less likely to be sleeping rooms. Wall construction is pretty much all the same, but you may find that floor joists on the 2nd floor are smaller than 1st floor. If I was going to put the safe upstairs I would at least try to situate it so that there is a wall underneath it.
jmorris
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…and it’s not the wall my head board is against one floor down.
That said, the slate alone for my pool table weighs more than the safe you are looking at by a LOT and the area of contact with the floor is less than 1 square foot. It is also situated so it is the furthest from any wall as it can be. The legs haven’t poked through the floor yet.
Skinny Pete
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It will be fine
Just get a pencil and paper and do a little math as to it's floor load versus say refrigerator full of food...
Or even that of todays average American lard-ass
vintovka
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If you live in a seismically active area, heavy dead loads can turn into Heavy Live loads real fast. One consideration is tall safes that are not mechanically attached to walls or worse, in a 2nd story room away from walls and with no wall or support below. Safes with heavy doors can change the center of gravity when open. I wonder if one has ever made it thru floor due to attempted break in by thieves. Tipping safe over and prying doors off seem SOP. Imagine a tall safe, being pushed over with an unsecured load in it.
wvfarrier
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When I was kid my mother got into salt water fish, my dad being a clever fellow, bought her this enormous 8ft long fish tank that held about 500 gallons of water. They set it all up and in the middle of the night it fell thru the floor into the basement. That stuck with me as important so I have always added a second joist anytime I installed a safe or other massively heavy object
CapnMac
Member
Water is heavy. Fresh water is 8.34#/gallon (saltwater is 8.55).
500 gallon tank is two tons of just water, not including the tank.
If we call the footprint 8 x 3 for 24 sf, that 's 178psf round numbers--which is a lot for interior wood framing to carry.
wvfarrier
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Yeah, it certainly caused a ruckus
danez71
Member
If it was only 178lbs on 1 Sqft, there wouldn't be a problem.
4,000 lbs on 2 joists held up by a few nails.... that seems a little sketchy.
RetiredUSNChief
Member
Exactly what I was thinking. A lot depends on how the tank stand was oriented with respect to the floor joists...with or across.
I had a king sized water bed way back in my first marriage. That's just shy of a ton of water. But the frame spread that weight out across quite a bit of fire by design.
WisBorn
Contributing Member
I agree - spreading the weight out is important, 4000#s on 2 joists is not spread out.
I have added Jack Posts in the basement to add support under heavy items.
With doubling up joists.
That must have been a long time ago. They were heating them with electric pads by the time I had a water bed.
vintovka
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I have seen 2 story places built with just 2 x 3 s for floor joists and really thin floors sheathing. Many were condos and cheapy single family tracts. Also some states and counties allowed construction with very reduced nailing schedules adding to problem. My first house was a Larchmont in Sacramento CA and amazed its still standing.
RetiredUSNChief
Member
Older homes are hit and miss, depending of a lot of variables. Houses built a century ago used 2x4 lumber that actually measured 2" by 4". Spacing, however, may not be anything like today's standards. I've seen houses with 24" studs/joists and even some with wider spacing.
I know of older homes built in Lafayette, Indiana by Wabash which used 2" studs, not 4". Post-WWII housing boom sure threw up a lot of much lower quality (cheaper) housing compared to today's building standards.
Floor joists 2x6 with 24" spacing isn't uncommon in some older housing. And that with the flooring nailed directly to the joists with no underlay between. Bouncing floors in those old homes was a fact of life and insulation against heat/cold nightmarishly non-existent.
I've seen wood paneling installed straight to the studs, no drywall, plaster, or anything else between the wood paneling and the studs at all. You could push on one spot and see it bow in while the spaces on the opposite sides of those studs bowed outward at the same time.
By the same token, some old houses might just as well have been carved out of granite, they're so solidly built. I helped a brother of mine remodel one old house....tore out all the old plaster and drywall and later drywalled everything after the other work. The studs were yellow pine. There was no pulling of nails from those studs...the resin in the wood wouldn't let the nails loose. Had to cut them all. And drywalling with screws was labor intensive, too. We had to pre-drill holes for the screws and wax the screws before using them.
Dad was a carpenter all his life...I remember one old building he remodeled had black walnut beams everywhere. We had a lot of black walnut stacked in the garage after that job was done.
CapnMac
Member
No lie. I've seen unsurfaced lumber which was anywhere from 1 7/8 to 2 1/4 thick and spaced a hammer's span apart. Which could be from 12" to 17" on center (ish)
"Direct" (e.g. direct to joists) flooring has actually become more common of late as people discover the "hardwood" floors in their remodeled houses (said floors actually being the subfloor, and often being a softwood species). The subfloor is an important aspect of the strength of the floor diaphragm. Which can make the spiffy engineered particle board tongue & groove glued & screwed subfloors look very attractive.
The "cool" part about 16" on center yields 4 studs per 48" span. There's a "wood miser spacing of 19.2" (aka Black Diamond from the symbols on the tape measure) which gives 6 studs per 96" versus 7 at 16" or 5 at 24" O.C.
The limitation then becomes limited by the ability of the interior finish to span the spacing selected. Drywall is usually limited to 24" span for walls and 16" for ceilings.
Now, if a person is loading up a floor constructed if modern TJI (e.g. manufactured wood "I" beams), you add packers to the space between the "flanges" (and additional perpendicular bracing, potentially).
Both of which would require having to open the ceiling up.
Now, folks above have pointed out the major potential weak link in getting a safe to an upper floor--the stairs. Stair stringers can be held in by nothing but a coupe of nails. Their strength is often the result of having all the parts fastened together. Which gets back to having a sub-tread to which the finish tread is applied.
vintovka
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Another factor is the strength of "new growth" Hem Fir from reforested areas and Chinese nails. Very leery of many new homes let alone parking 500+ pounds on anything but a concrete slab. Even then recently watched a 3" slab being poured on 4" grid wire mesh as "rebar". The 4" abs drain pipes had less than an 1" of coverage. I joked to foreman about the value of ABS in lieu of rebar. He was not amused and asked "*** i knew" I showed him my RCE License card and he stopped talking. Those bolting safes down on a slab better be darn sure where the pipes are.
JFrank
Member
What is a RCE license ?
vintovka
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Registered Civil Engineer. FWIW I started out in structures, literally wasted 3 decades as the first of the "environmental engineers" but got into stuff like Haz mat, "toxic mold" remediation and Epidemiology due to boredom. Miss the "expert witness" $$$ from side practice
Atavar
Member
Quite often (especially older construction) the first floor has stronger support beams. The last house I had the first floor had 10x10 beams while the second floor was 2x10 joists.
JFrank
Member
In Structures - like a structural engineer ? interesting there are so many different types of engineering degrees I can hardly keep up.
I carried my ICC residential building inspector certification many years but I enjoyed being a builder over inspecting.
My favorite thing is designing homes then bring that design to reality.
I carried my ICC residential building inspector certification many years but I enjoyed being a builder over inspecting.
My favorite thing is designing homes then bring that design to reality.
CoalCrackerAl
Member
My house was built in the early 1900's. They didn't use thin wood back then, A 2x4.6,8 ect ect was that size. Not the planed down stuff today. My floors are real hard wood thong and grove. My guns and ammo and loading supplies are on the second floor in one room. I have all the weight on the outer walls of the house. Bad part about these old houses. Is the wood burns very hot when there is a fire. And they are a total loss. A lot of the homes are asbestos siding. And it holds the heat in.
whughett
Member
Of course the position of the floor joist should be determined. Can the safe span more than one, how close to a bearing wall below, is the closet located. Inside wall, out side wall??
JFrank
Member
The early home didn’t have the fire blocking to stop draft that sends these old houses up in flames really fast.
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