Dental Office Design Loads

[dhoward26]

There isn't anything in the ASCE for design loads of a dental facility. I just picked up a job for one, 1st story is 2,600 sqft and is where everything takes place, 2nd story is for storage and mechanical and is only about 600 sqft. There are only (5) treatment/patient rooms on the first floor.

Design loads I'm assuming out of the ASCE 7:

1st Floor:

Reception area (Lobbies) and first floor corridors: 100 psf
Treatment rooms: 60 psf

2nd Floor

Mechanical/Storage Room: 125 psf

The occupancy is really very limited so the loads for the first floor seam high but are the only relatively close loads I could find in the ASCE 7 tables. Can I decrease these any?

 

[fegenbush]

The values you have appear to be in accordance with the standard. For the lobby and reception area, some would classify that as "public assembly" (conservative) and exclude it from live load reduction. For the treatment areas, they would be subject to normal area calculated live load reduction per 4.8.1 of ASCE 7-05.

 

[AELLC]

I think the first floor loads seem a bit high, compared to the heavier equipment that a hospital would have, but still reasonable.

I think the second floor live could actually be exceeded in the footprint where they will have the patient records.

 

[JacksPanic]

I would assume the live loads to be similar to the requirements for hospitals?

 

[JacksPanic]

Patient records / high density filing areas should be clearly shown on plan and designed as such. Probably in the order of 10kPa

 

[dhengr]

Dhoward26:
I would think that the patient rooms could be 40#/sf., but the trick is to pay attention to the concentrated loads which will exist right under treatment chairs, the equipment pedestals which contain all the water and air plumbing and electric hookups, and such things as x-ray machines. This stuff all needs pretty specific plumbing, and physical connection points, so study and lay these out in detail, along with the weight of the equipment and its attachment needs. A nice clean framing scheme with room for the trades to do their work efficiently, will really pay off. The dentist should help you a bit with getting these equipment specs. and his want for room layout, etc.

 

[AELLC]

dhengr

You can't have patient rooms as 40 psf, IMO, because they are treatment areas, not patient beds only.

I don't think it is worthwhile to chase down X-ray equip, etc, because all those machines in dentist office are much smaller and lighter than in hospital, ie it's only to xray the jaw.

 

[mbullism]

I'm not sure what the requirements are for xrays these days. The first two dental facilities I worked with required/requested lead in certain walls for the techs to step behind. The last office did not. Just a heads up.

 

[dhoward26]

Great! Thank you all for the inputs. I think I will leave my design loads as is and then coordinate point loads of the chairs with the dentist and architect. It seams to be somewhat of a gray area with dental facilities (as it is with other health care facilities that are not classified as hospitals).

I do think it is prudent to get better understanding of the records and file storage of the 2nd floor though...that could be a big miss in the design if I don't iron that out more.

Thank you for the input.

 

[SteelPE]

If I remember correctly, we designed a dental office years ago and used a flat 80psf for live load. In accordance with the code, the floor was designed for a 2,000 point load on 2'-6" x 2'-6" area so we were not concerned about any large equipment at the time. Maybe we were wrong.... but I haven't heard anything from the client about that structure.

 

[TDIengineer]

I designed several medical office buildings for a developer and we really liked using a straight 80 PSF as SteelPE has noted. This exceeds the 15 psf plus 50 office live load (65 total) while providing a nice level of comfort for any heavy local loads such as from a large fish tank or medical equipment. If the floor is composite on steel framing the added 15 psf live from 65 to 80 was very little additional cost, maybe just a few more nelson studs on the purlins and maybe a size larger on the girders.

We would sometimes go clear up to as high as 250 psf for the high density medical file storage areas.

 

[SteelPE]

FYI, we use 80 psf because that is the requirement for corridors above the first floor. Since most of the buildings we design are "Spec" buildings, we have no idea where the corridors are going to go so we use the 80psf everywhere. May not be the most economical..... but it works.

 

[TDIengineer]

And yes, Steel PE for that reason as well. They can remodel the raised floors and shift the central corridor and never worry about having to justify the change in loading to the beams.

 

[dhoward26]

I like the idea of straight 80 psf. That way I won't have to worry about applying the 100 to only certain areas and going through a zillion load combinations. It's a small clinic so I think I would feel comfortable with the 80 instead of the 100 in the lobby and reception area. The floor will be constructed with wood i-joists. I will have to check on the fish tank thing...the architect usually specs it, but I didn't see one in this design.