On 29 Mar 2006 12:27:44 -0800, wrote:

Thanks Goedjn, your reply helps me a great deal.

The condo below me has an identical floor plan. Does this mean that
all of the walls in my room are load bearing? Also, I looked at the
roof over the room (it has a separate roof orientation from the rest of
the building) and it slopes along the 11' side of the game room so I am
guessing that the joists are lined up parallel to the 11' side. All
but one of the games are going to be positioned along the 11' sides of
the room as well.

So I will basically have three games lined up against one 11' wall
along two joists (approx 825lbs) and five games lined up against the
other 11' wall over two joists (approx 1375lbs). I will also have one
game centered up against one of the 10' walls (approx 300lbs). Make
sense? I am not sure how the 30PSF averaging works. Can the weight be
anywhere in the room or does is need to be evenly spread out? In other
words.. does the floor act as a single structure or do I need to be
concerned about weight on individual joists? Having games in the
center of the room would not really be feasible.

Thanks again, Ryan

If you assume that the joists are 16" on-center, and that the
floor is designed to support 30 PSF, then each joist
is sized to support (30/12)*16=40 Pounds/LINEAR foot.
If they're running the short way in a 10x11 room, then
that's 400 pounds/joist, or 800 pounds for a pair of them.
This assumes an even distribution, which you don't have.
For point-loads, you have to either do math (which I
don't know how to describe), or make sure that most of your
load is closer to the support walls than to the middle
of the span.

I'd say that the five games along one pair of joists
is more than you probably want.
Do you have to arrange the machines
so that they're all lined up on the same pair(s) of
joists, or can you go along the other wall(s)?
How do you know which way the joists are going, anyway?

(It's getting near time to draw a diagram of the room,
and post it somewhere.)