I’m trying to reorganize my house and I have a room upstairs we’re converting into an office. With a desk and a couple of bookshelves and steel cabinets, I’m starting to worry about the weight of the things we’re putting up there.
What’s the limit? Will the house fall apart at a certain point?
Depends on the design loads of the house and foundation.
http://www.radix.net/~bobg/books/loading.html
http://www.awc.org/technical/spantables/tutorial.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=OMVc-nTpqwAC&pg=PA285&lpg=PA285&dq=floor+loading+house+standards&source=bl&ots=mAP-01hiRE&sig=HioXqWNMeS91uMjj3wNJVnZvmdI&hl=en&ei=JdwRS8veMYjCsQPml7DCAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Comment by kay — December 26, 2009 @ 12:05 am
Going on the premise that there is no such thing as a stupid question, I will answer this one.
I have never, ever heard of a house collapsing or getting any damage due to having too much stuff up on the second floor, have you?
Go ahead and put a desk, a couple of bookshelves and steel cabinets in your second story office. I have lots more than that and my house is still standing.
EDIT: Come on people. Let’s be reasonable here. It’s not like a hoard of elephants are going to live on the second floor here. We are talking about four, maybe five pieces of office furniture !!
Comment by seamstress — December 26, 2009 @ 12:05 am
you can’t really tell that…. there is a design load that engineers use or designers with a pretty large factor of safety.
but no one is going to tell you for sure with out geotechnical information and the size of your footings and a structural plan of your house
Comment by frustrated — December 26, 2009 @ 12:05 am