On 12 Mar 2006 20:52:26 -0800, "Billy" wrote:

I have a bathroom project that I'm doing and I loaded all the materials
into my master bedroom - not knowing if I'm loading too much weight on
the second floor structure. I have placed eight standard sized sheets
of wonderboard (6 x 9's, I think), four 8 x 12 sheetrock sheets, three
hardibacker 8 x 10 floor sheets, a 24" bathroom wood cabinet, 25"
granite top with ceramic inlay bowl amd a Kohler toilet - all in one
quarter section of a 18 x 12 bedroom. It all seems fairly heavy for the
one segment of the room, but then I look at our solid wood armoire,
dresser and bed and think maybe I'm sweating this for nothing.

Is this too much weight in one area for a 40 year old single family
split level home? Is there standards and maximum weight capacities for
a room? I never really thought about this and need help quick.


Call your building department and see if they can look up the code
standards for approx. year your home was built so you can have an idea
what the live load was designed for (capacity). The next thing is
approx but not really what an engineer would do (too lengthy to give
an exact method here). Take the weight of your material divide by the
area it's occupying and multiply that by about 1.25 (call this a fudge
factor) and see if this combined number is less than the capacity. Of
course, its always best to spread the load out as much as possible
regardless of the calculation.