Who to call to tell me how much weight my upstairs floor can support?

[Kelvrick]

I got the horrible horrible news that my mother-in-law has to move in with me. As horrible as that is, we have a bedroom downstairs and I think everyone will be happier if she stays down there while my wife and I stay upstairs.

I currently have a power rack, treadmill, barbell, plates, dumbbells, etc down there as a workout room. Now, I need to move all of that upstairs into one of the other bedrooms. I was initially confident in how a room can easily handle the amount of weight using the following estimations:

Power rack - 200#
barbell + plates - 300#
bench - #50
treadmill - 200#
barbells - 300#
barbell rack - 50#

Total of #1100 lbs, not counting the wood flooring currently in there. I was thinking of bringing in rubber stall mats and 3/4" plywood to help spread the weight as well as dampen noise and it started getting dicey. 4 4x6 stall mats along with probably 4x 4x8 plywood will probably be a good 500# and now I'm thinking I should probably get an inspector of some sort to look at my house to see how the joists etc are setup.

Who should I be looking for? I didn't know if one of the regular housing inspectors that you'd ask to inspect a home purchase would cut it?

 

[SMOGZINN]

I was expecting a 'my mother-in-law is so fat' joke out of this.
dissapoint.

 

[Baked]

Don't you hate it when your in-laws came with the package?

 

[Crusty]

As long as your weight room is above your MIL's room I think you are just fine...

 

[Kreon]

Honestly, I would skip the home inspector and go for a structural engineer. Most home inspectors are trained to look for issues and the quality and condition of the home, not structural capacities.

 

[amdhunter]

pics of MIL?

 

[Ns1]

As long as your weight room is above your MIL's room I think you are just fine...

 

[SMOGZINN]

pics of MIL?

Are you thinking MILILF?

 

[shortylickens]

I'm only 230 and I make the floorboards creak.
I would not try putting equipment up on the third floor.

 

[melchoir]

Think not of just the weight, but the force on the floor that the weight will create when you set down a loaded barbell. (Even on the power rack it goes to the floor ultimately.)

 

[rommelrommel]

I looked into this when I bought my safe. The way it was put to me was, think about how much weight a fatass and a tub of water is, yet you don't hear about bathtubs collapsing through the floor.

 

[DrPizza]

Compare it to a waterbed. Let's say 1500 pounds for a waterbed. Some types of construction aren't adequate for waterbeds. But, that weight is distributed fairly uniformly over a certain amount of area. Hard to say how much area your weights will be distributed over, but it doesn't sound like it would really be a problem. At least, not a major problem.

 

[CPA]

I'm only 230 and I make the floorboards creak.
I would not try putting equipment up on the third floor.

The creaking is not from the joists, which bare the load, but your floorboards (plywood) not screwed in tight enough.

 

[Northern Lawn]

Yeah 1100 lbs isnt a lot of weight, that's equivalent to 6 full grown Canadian men or 3 full grown American men.

 

[KaOTiK]

What's the worst that can happen? Your equipment ends up back in the original room and you have a hole in the floor. Just make sure the room above is over the old room.

 

[olds]

I see no issue.
Oh ya, pics of mil?

 

[CPA]

A quick google search found that 2x10 joists spanning about 17', 16" OC can carry about 40lbs psf. So a 10x10 room can carry about 4,000 pounds.

 

[Lifted]

I was expecting a 'my mother-in-law is so fat' joke out of this.
dissapoint.

So this. After first sentence I was reading it in Al Bundy's voice.

 

[Lifted]

Think not of just the weight, but the force on the floor that the weight will create when you set down a loaded barbell. (Even on the power rack it goes to the floor ultimately.)

Bench weight, plus your weight, plus the bar + weights weight... that's a lot of weight in one small spot.

wait...

 

[shortylickens]

The creaking is not from the joists, which bare the load, but your floorboards (plywood) not screwed in tight enough.

My mom weighs 130.
She doesnt squeak.

 

[olds]

My mom weighs 130.
She doesnt squeak.

That's cause we lube her up.

 

[olds]

On second thought, that's a lot of weight. Better let me hold the M4 omegaX 12 fsp.