weight on floor joists

jaket

jaket

jaket

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Location
Uckfield
We are planning a home water birth and we want to have it on our first floor however I just want to be sure that the weight of the pool will be ok on the joists.

Its roughly 3 baths of water in weight (12 adults)

The house is brand new built 2014

Attached is a joist diagram however I am not able to understand it.

http://i.imgur.com/TSUklaK.png

Thanks
 
tom_e said:
How many liters of water are we talking?
Click to expand...

3 baths should be around 240KG, average bath being 80L from what I can gather. Not sure what the 12 adults bit is about? Is that how many other people you are going to have in the room?

For the sake of argument say it was 300KG, I'd say that's still going to be fine. A pool like that should spread the load out quite well I imagine, it'll probably be less strain on your floor than a couple of people standing next to each other.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Sorry the 12 adults was the rough weight for the larger pool.

Weight when filled 487kg (1,071 lbs) plus mother (75kg)
480 litres of water which is 80% filled.
 
Your projections estimate an adult weighing in at 46KG! You're looking at about 7 adults worth of weight, spread out pretty evenly, I wouldn't worry about that personally but I'm no structural engineer :p
 
We've used those I beams a lot, they aren't built for more than what they are intended for which is residential use, they won't slowly give way they will suddenly go. We have been asked before about fishtanks and the answer has always been a solid no.

The reason I ask about the ground floor is that you could back prop down and spread the load about a bit, couple of acro's and some ply however you really need to ask the manufacturer what load they have been designed for and calculate it from this or ask a structural engineer to give you a sketch.

It's good you have the drawing an engineer could probably whip something up quite quickly.
 
Maccapacca, you're seriously saying that the floor wouldn't be able to take the weight of 6 people all huddling together? One big group hug and goodbye floor?
 
Zefan said:
Maccapacca, you're seriously saying that the floor wouldn't be able to take the weight of 6 people all huddling together? One big group hug and goodbye floor?
Click to expand...

I'm saying that's most likely not what's it's been designed for yes and no one should be giving advice apart from seek proper advice or speak to the manufacturer.
 
Zefan said:
Maccapacca, you're seriously saying that the floor wouldn't be able to take the weight of 6 people all huddling together? One big group hug and goodbye floor?
Click to expand...

500kg for a few minutes and moving around would be ok, but that bath is likely to be filled for a good few days beforehand and maybe a couple or three days afterwards given it'll be a hectic time? That's large static load for potentially a week or two? With respect to the OP, new builds will be built to the design spec and nothing more.
 
The bath will be filled on the day and empty on the day... I don't know about you but it will be messy and I don't want that hanging around!

I thought as much thats why I wanted to check. Hopefully Linden get back to me.
 
Adam-r said:
500kg for a few minutes and moving around would be ok, but that bath is likely to be filled for a good few days beforehand and maybe a couple or three days afterwards given it'll be a hectic time?
Click to expand...

Why would it be? Babies don't just pop out within minutes, and giving birth in a pool of stagnant water isn't the best of ideas :p
 
There's your loads, I'd say a pool of water is a dead load rather than a live load in which case you have 0.75kn/m2

HP3vlsX.jpg
 
By these calculations, your floor isn't fit to support two people stood within a metre of each other... although maybe "not designed" to do it, I bet you can stand next to someone for a long time in that room and not experience any falling-through-the-floor moments.
 
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