Large fish tank upstairs.

cganderson87 · 15 Jun 2011

Hello

I have purchased a new fish tank and am looking to put this at the hall area at the top of my stairs.

The tank is a Juwel Vision 450. holds 450 litres of water.

I was worried about the weight and whether it could cause any damage by being up there?

hotrod · 16 Jun 2011

450litres + tank is going to be approx half a tonne so what's the footprint (m²) of this fella?

galliano2001 · 16 Jun 2011

http://www.juwel-aquarium.de/data/Image/Zeichnungen/10300.jpg

jeds · 17 Jun 2011

That's 4.5kN and the area of the base of the tank is 0.9m². If your house is built to current regulations the standard design load is 1.5kN/m² so you can see the tank would be more than three times the design limit. There is a safety factor in the design but that's only 1.4

The average bath of water is about 3.5kN but the floor joists beneath a bath are doubled to allow for this. Also a bath is filled intermittently and not left filled for months (or years) at a time.

When you design beams and joists they don't normally fail the calculation on stress - they normally fail on deflection first. So what this tank will most likely do is make your joists deflect more than they should. This will worsen over time and the joists will take on the deflection permanently - this is known as creep. Deflection of joists will cause cracking of brittle finishes - such as plaster and covings.

If you do proceed I I would at least spread the load across as many joists as possible. Give it a try and keep a close eye on it. If you see any cracking start bailing. If your house is older then you really need to check your joists and connections.

glock339 · 17 Jun 2011

Suppose it really depend a lot on what joists, support etc you have up there. I will be putting in a 5 and half foot tank into my house that I'm busy renovating and will also have sump tanks etc under it. The house is old with small joists so while I had the floors up sorting that out I also re enforced directly under where the tank is going with concrete block pillars from the ground up to my joists and included a DPM. Obviously you cant do this up stairs but I'd try and check what you have before putting half a tonne of water up there.

glock339 · 17 Jun 2011

Doh much better reply beat me to it

cganderson87 · 19 Jun 2011

jeds said:
That's 4.5kN and the area of the base of the tank is 0.9m². If your house is built to current regulations the standard design load is 1.5kN/m² so you can see the tank would be more than three times the design limit. There is a safety factor in the design but that's only 1.4

The average bath of water is about 3.5kN but the floor joists beneath a bath are doubled to allow for this. Also a bath is filled intermittently and not left filled for months (or years) at a time.

When you design beams and joists they don't normally fail the calculation on stress - they normally fail on deflection first. So what this tank will most likely do is make your joists deflect more than they should. This will worsen over time and the joists will take on the deflection permanently - this is known as creep. Deflection of joists will cause cracking of brittle finishes - such as plaster and covings.

If you do proceed I I would at least spread the load across as many joists as possible. Give it a try and keep a close eye on it. If you see any cracking start bailing. If your house is older then you really need to check your joists and connections.

So Jeds I really want to put this at the top of my stairs, what would you suggest doing? If I had to reinforce the floor, how much £££ are we talking.

Thanks,

Chris

jeds · 20 Jun 2011

You'd have to lift floorboards and probably triple the joists and ensure the connections are sound. Not easy to do. Especially if there are services running though. If that isn't feasible the next best it to fix whatever you can to the existing joists. i.e. screw a couple of 4x2s to either side of the existing joists. If you can support the ends then do but if not they will still reduce bending in the middle of the spans. You still need to check the existing connections to make sure they are sound.

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Large fish tank upstairs.

hotrod

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