Could heavy piece of furniture be too much for second floor of house? 2

[millworker301]

We just bought a mountain house in NC. My wife has purchased a buffet I guess it is called and I am very concerned about the weight of it. It is about 6' long and 32" high and will be getting placed in the kitchen where there is just an empty wall with no cabinets. It is a wood piece but it is very heavy. The kitchen is on what I would call the second floor although it is really the main floor of the house. There is a finished basement below it but it is more at ground level than actually be a dug out basement. I know this my sound stupid but I am just concerned about the weight of this item being too much. There is not a supporting wall located directly below this part of the kitchen.

Does anyone have an opinion on something like this? What should I be looking at? Am I worrying about nothing? Thanks for any input or help that you might be on this.

 

[hokie66]

If the house is designed and constructed in accordance with accepted practice, the buffet loaded with dishes etc. is not a problem. But we can't tell from here if the structure is adequate.

 

[LittleInch]

Some sort of sketch and other details required to make sense of this.

Such as - this thing - what is its estimated all up weight? how many feet does it have, what is the floor made of, where do the joists run, how big are they and what other weights are carried by them, what condition are they in?

Locating it next to the wall is a good idea to reduce bending load on the joists, but not enough detail here to provide any level of judgement.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[XR250]

It also depends on the direction of the joist span. If the joists are parallel to it, that might be a problem, if perpendicular, that would be better as the load is ditributed among many joists. I see this occasionally with heavy bookcases.

 

[moltenmetal]

If the house is designed and framed properly, i.e. in accordance with a building code, the only pieces of "furniture" heavy enough to worry about in terms of floor loading are bathtubs/spas full of water and stone or masonry fireplaces. Bookshelves? Never thought of that, but they could indeed get very heavy too. I doubt a buffet full of dishes would be a problem unless it is fitted with a 4" thick solid stone top or something like that!

Nobody here can tell you whether your "mountain home" was designed and built in accordance with an accepted building code. If you're worried, you'll need to hire a local engineer to assess it for you, and that's going to be costly.

 

[Brad805]

Do you have a shipping weight?

 

[John2025]

Are there stairs? If so, they may well be the weak link. Seems like I hear about basement stairs collapsing more than floors.

 

[oldestguy]

You structural contributors probably should define what is too much load? My dad once owned an old farm house with a pretty long span floor of a bedroom over a living room. Ya have never lived until in that bed up there you keep sliding to the foot board, since the floor had a sag in about a 18 foot or more span. The sag easily was 4 inches or more.
The big wood stove up there sitting well away from wall didn't help either. A very springy floor that. House now probably over 100 years old, still in active use.

 

[hokie66]

oldestguy,
That is not "too much load", it is a floor which was just built, not designed.

 

[BUGGAR]

I think it depends on the buffet. If you don't like it, then it is too heavy for your floor and that's all there is too it.

 

[millworker301]

Thanks for the great input. I will have to look into several of the issues that you guys put up and get back to you. We will be at the house this weekend so I will check on things like the direction of the joists, the size of the joists and such. I will also see is I get get some idea of the weight of the piece, plus I will post the measurements of the piece. I don't think I have any way of actually getting a weight on it. I will also look at the footing of it and see if it is supported along the length of the bottom or just on 4 legs. Thanks again. If you think of it check back in a few days and see if any new info I can post is helpful.

 

[medeek]

Bookshelves always worry me since they can get quite heavy, but they are usually against the wall so usually not too much of a concern as far as joist in bending. However, if the joists run parallel to the book cases then the first joist away from the wall might be overloaded in some situations.

The other issue is large jacuzzi type tubs. Some of these full can easily weigh a 1,000lbs. Then a couple large occupants can add another 500lbs. I typically call out doubling the TJI joists under these type of tubs as a conservative measure.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[JedClampett]

There used to be a lot of worry about waterbeds. They weigh a whole heck of a lot and it's over a large area. But I guess they're either out of style or no one worries about them anymore.
You could put each leg (or corner) on a bathroom scale and fill it up with dishes. Divide it by the area. I'd be surprised if it weighs more than 40 psf which a floor of a house should be able to take. But you never know. And just because it could take it when new doesn't mean it could take it today.

 

[BUGGAR]

We had a waterbed once. It was placed against the wall and there was a 1/2 inch gap between the baseboard and the floor. My wife was totally convinced that the floor was collapsing. Until she saw that the baseboard had been raised in the past for carpeting.

 

[millworker301]

Ok, guys. I was at the house this weekend and took a look at the structure of the floor. The joists under the kitchen where we are planning on putting the heavy buffet are I-beam type. I think they are called TJI type joinsts. They are 16" tall and are spaced 16" on center. They also run perpendicular to the postition that the piece will be located. Still don't have a weight on the piece but it is 69" long and it looks like the weight is supported on the front leg and all the way down the full length of the back.

 

[LittleInch]

This is out of my depth, but a quick look seems to say these joists have reduced dead load capability (10psf). There are though many different types of TJI joists. One thing they do seem to need is very good bracing to keep them vertical. see typical attached.


Maybe too late now, but photos of the beams, their bracing and what their bearing on are critical to understanding their capability.

As someone else said, your worst case might be actually moving this thing in not when it's in position.



Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[moltenmetal]

The likelihood is high that if TJI joists were used, the floor was engineered at least to some degree (i.e. a span table was used to select the required depth and spacing of the TJIs) and you have little to worry about. As noted above, almost all furniture is not so heavy that it would exceed the pounds per square foot allowance used for the design of a normal floor. Personally I would worry no further but it's your house and your consequences if things were to go wrong.

 

[Duwe6]

If you have an approximate weight of this item, you could always "ask the house". Set up a cheap rotating laser in the room and take some elevation measurements of the floor. Then haul in sacks of water-softener salt, cement, sand, etc until you have approximated the load of the hutch. I'd say 1/2-inch is the limit -- Anybody else want to chime in on max deflection ??

 

[jayrod12]

Live load deflection L/360. Total load L/240. That's standard residential requirements.

I'm going to bet that the hutch does not exceed 40 PSF (or at least not significantly). It's almost 6' long and likely 2' wide. That would mean it could safely weigh 500 lbs without anyone batting an eye. And likely could weigh over 700 lbs before fear of collapse.

 

[LittleInch]

I'm assuming by buffet (I'd call it a sideboard) you mean something like this?

Even the lightest on of your beans has a shear load of nearly 2000 lbs. As the weight will be spread over 4 or 5, that's nearly 4 tons. End reaction is listed at half that, but that's still more weight than a piece of furniture.

Deflection or the strength of whatever the joists sit on might be an issue, but it looks to me like the joists are good enough.

suspect your biggest issue will be how do you get it into the room without giving yourself back ache....

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.