I have some recent experience with putting something fairly massive
onto a residential floor. As part of the kitchen remodel we're
installing an Aga cooker, which is just under 1300 pounds spread
evenly over roughly a 5x3 foot area -- that "evenly" bit is important;
there are no point loads as opposed to what you might expect from the
feet on bays (or even the rails resting directly on the floor).
According to the manufacturer, the floor loading is "usually" acceptable
if the Aga is installed immediately adjacent to a load bearing wall.
In our case it's installed against _two_ foundation sills, thanks to the
weird seismic codes we have (which, in fact, more or less assure that
homes will be torn apart in a major event, but that's another story) the
unsupported span for the beams is only about ten feet.
This is a recent construction home with beams on 16" centers, with the
back end of the load essentially resting on a foundation sill -- and
the engineers freaked. It was necessary to install additional piers and
an additional beam parallel to the front of the cooker before they'd
issue our permits.
--
Chris Kennedy
chris_at_mainecoon.com
http://www.mainecoon.com
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
Received on Sat Apr 07 2001 - 11:48:08 BST