Do you think about your floor?
- Thread starter Snowflake311
- Start date
I went with smaller tank.. simple because we rent.. no way to reinforce the floor.. and if we hozed the flooring it'd be expensiiive.. and not an investment. I can say though.. I told my hubby a full basement preferabbly a walk-out is required in any house we look at.
i have a 125 gal on my top floor above my basment. crazy indeed for even concidering it. first off, a coal mine collapsed a few years ago under our house so everything was cracked etc. also our house is well over 60 years ago, but with high quality wood, where you cant even drive a nail into it without killing yourself! so, the coal company came and ran 2x6 beams across the now unsupported areas, then jacked the beams up with jacks. where my tank is, 2 2x6's screwed together, are about half length of the tank, so only half of it is supported to the least. what we did is jack up the other half to compensate with a 6 or 8 ton floor jack, and four months later, Aok! simple thinks like the way the floors run and supporting walls etc, as well as your stand size can all benefit when a decision like that arises. a 125 gal is normally 6x18"x24" so i made my stand (4x4's, 3/4" ply) about 4 inches longer, and made it 24 inches deep so the footprint is much more evenly spread. i never did go the route of engineers etc for hire, but just evened the odds out with obvious saftey and bit the bullet!
First I reinforced the floor myself with concrete blocks and floor jacks. Then, I had a contractor come look at it, and tell me everything was okay.
I have a 125 and a 180 that are perpendicular to the joists and suppoted on one edge by either the foundation or a massive support beam. My 450 however has neither of those. For that one we added 2 beams that run from the foundation to the main support beam and a floor jack that was placed under a header that connects the two beams.
So for two tanks I am at the: do some careful math and have confidence in your home; and for one: I reinforced it my self.
So for two tanks I am at the: do some careful math and have confidence in your home; and for one: I reinforced it my self.
I bought my place just after it was framed. I had the builder reinforce the floors and had a plumber put a washer hookup (drain, hot water, and cold water) in the wall below the tank level. Now when I need to do water changes I just put the siphon in the drain and sit back and relax. To fill it up I just turn the hot and cold water on and they fill the sump which in turn fills the tank! I would highly recommend this setup for tanks bigger than 120.
