Strengthen floor for gym

[BB70Chevelle]

Not really a garage question but hoping some of the members here can help. I have a newer home (2015) the me and the wife turned a spare bedroom into a home gym and im starting to get concerned with how much weight is in that room. Roughly we have about 4000lbs worth of equipment in there. Went in the crawl space last night to get measurements of everything and our house was built using 2x10 floor joist 16" oc. The joist span is 13.5'.

Currently what I'm thinking is to sister all the floor joist and to install a lvl beam under the house. Our frost line here is 12" so I was thinking id go 12"x12"x16" footers? How close can I put a footer to my foundation wall? Can I put a post on one of my foundation footers? Id then use 4x4 post to go from the footer up to a 4"x8"x12' beam. I also plan to add blocking between all the joist for more strength. Last night I measured up and down every joist and none of them have moved at all from the weight so I'm thinking I can just **** the beam up against the floor joist and use straps to tie the floor joist into the new beam?

Anything I should do different? Does my plan sound good?

 

[Milton Shaw]

Floors are usually designed for 40lbs per square foot live load. Unless your room is under 100 sq ft you should be good to go. A water bed weighs about as much as your equipment If really concerned at half span put a beam and a couple of posts on thick solid block and help take the load off. Should not be a problem either way unless you have all 4,000 lbs stacked in one corner.

 

[CombatNinja]

How big is this bedroom!? Even most master suites in 'normal' houses are not big enough for a gym, especially one with 4000 pounds of equipment and weights. Seriously trying to picture this.

 

[dg57]

Since the footers would be in an area protected from frost, I think the getting the the footer on undisturbed soil is a lot more important.

 

[BB70Chevelle]

A bulk of the weight is in one spot, all the plates are stored on my rack. The rack weighs roughly 400lbs and has almost 1000 lbs of plates on it. I also have a 5-75lb set of dumbbells in the room that is 1500lbs plus the other three machines, two benches, chains, and 10 barbells all add up to around another 1000lbs. 4000lbs is probably a high estimate. Here is a pic of the gym,

Today I'm planning to sister all the floor joist and add blocking, then ill add a beam down the center in the near future. It may not be needed but I like the added piece of mind. To me when it comes to my home over kill is a good thing.

 

[CombatNinja]

There is no point in having 1000 pounds of plates in that gym.

 

[azcanc]

There is no point in having 1000 pounds of plates in that gym.

My thoughts exactly

 

[BB70Chevelle]

Is it nessacery no probably not but its nice when I'm doing super sets and dont feel like moving weights from one machine to another when I'm trying to keep rest at a minimum. Plus me and my wife train together some times and she may be doing lat pull downs while im deadlifting (over 500lbs) so the plates are needed. We are planning in the future to build a 30x30 pole barn for the gym its just not in the budget for a few more years so I want to protect my house in the mean time.

 

[WhiteSSP]

Mirin that duffalo bar and fat pad. Biggest concern I’d have is the force of weights dropping when deadifting if you lose grip. Not sure what your numbers are, but the force dropping from height onto a few square inches of space is going to be up there. I’m way too retarded to figure out how much but I just assume a lot.

I have my gym in my garage and have built platforms because I’m afraid of cracking the concrete and damaging the weight if I get hype and slam a dead.

 

[BB70Chevelle]

Mirin that duffalo bar and fat pad. Biggest concern I’d have is the force of weights dropping when deadifting if you lose grip. Not sure what your numbers are, but the force dropping from height onto a few square inches of space is going to be up there. I’m way too retarded to figure out how much but I just assume a lot.

I have my gym in my garage and have built platforms because I’m afraid of cracking the concrete and damaging the weight if I get hype and slam a dead.

Thanks I'm a huge fan of both pieces they have done great to help my shoulders and keep them pain free. I highly recommend both pieces!

Thats really my biggest concern is deadlifting (over 500lbs) but there isnt much I can do to help that other then be careful and hope I never loose grip on a heavy deadlift. I always lower the bar back down to the floor so it have to be an unplanned failure. I know this isnt ideal but I'm trying to make best of whats available to me and in the future it'll all be in a much bigger barn on a concrete floor but thats a few years off.

 

[WhiteSSP]

I think if you sister joists and have a good platform you honestly should be more than fine. It looks like you have stall mats down over a platform already(?) so that will dampen some of the force and spread it out. Gotta also remember that if you have to bail on a heavy squat it’s gonna transfer all of the force through the rack, most of it going to the front two mounting legs since you have a half rack setup.

 

[WhiteSSP]

But like I said I’m far from an engineer so if someone else says I’m wrong and seems like they’re not as dumb as me maybe believe them lol

 

[BB70Chevelle]

Yes stall mats are on top of 1.5" worth of plywood. When squating I always have the safety straps set properly so it would almost never be from any large distance maybe 2" I've always failed at the bottom of a attempt I've never lost it up top.

 

[egdede]

...If really concerned at half span put a beam and a couple of posts on thick solid block and help take the load off. Should not be a problem either way unless you have all 4,000 lbs stacked in one corner.

The best way to protect your house would be to remove much of that steel. But, otherwise, sistering is not the way to go. Milton's suggestion is much less expensive, and much easier!!!

 

[wssix99]

You shouldn't need to do anything as long as you are smart about how you are storing the weights.

Floors are usually designed for 40lbs per square foot live load. Unless your room is under 100 sq ft you should be good to go. A water bed weighs about as much as your equipment If really concerned at half span put a beam and a couple of posts on thick solid block and help take the load off. Should not be a problem either way unless you have all 4,000 lbs stacked in one corner.

It's all right here. There's no concern with that much weight unless you start putting it out to the mid span of the joists.

A bulk of the weight is in one spot, all the plates are stored on my rack. The rack weighs roughly 400lbs and has almost 1000 lbs of plates on it. I also have a 5-75lb set of dumbbells in the room that is 1500lbs plus the other three machines, two benches, chains, and 10 barbells all add up to around another 1000lbs. 4000lbs is probably a high estimate.

No problem here if the weights are stored near an exterior wall. IF your joists are solid wood, your floors are much stronger with respect to dead weight as you get closer to the exterior walls. (The forces manifest themselves primary in pure vertical shear vs. bending moments. Solid wood is generally much stronger against the former.) The floor gets stressed when this weight moves to the center, away from the outside walls, and bending stresses are induced in the joists. (BTW - Blocking will help the floor withstand greater bending stresses - but you may not even need that.)

Is that room in a corner of the house? Or is the only outside wall the one with the window? If the latter, you may want to move your storage rack over to the window wall.

Rearranging things may drive the Mrs. batty, but its more practical and straight-forward than doing structural things, which could make it harder for you to sell the house down the road. (Adding blocking is a pretty easy/benign thing, to do though.) After all, this is just a short term arrangement until you get a little older, other things move into the room, and its time to get fat like the rest of us!


As long as you aren't storing weight center-span on the joists, my greatest concern would be dropping weights on the floor and adding protection for that.

 

[8mpg]

This is a great example of where $300 for an engineer would be money well spent.

 

[BB70Chevelle]

You shouldn't need to do anything as long as you are smart about how you are storing the weights.



It's all right here. There's no concern with that much weight unless you start putting it out to the mid span of the joists.




No problem here if the weights are stored near an exterior wall. IF your joists are solid wood, your floors are much stronger with respect to dead weight as you get closer to the exterior walls. (The forces manifest themselves primary in pure vertical shear vs. bending moments. Solid wood is generally much stronger against the former.) The floor gets stressed when this weight moves to the center, away from the outside walls, and bending stresses are induced in the joists. (BTW - Blocking will help the floor withstand greater bending stresses - but you may not even need that.)

Is that room in a corner of the house? Or is the only outside wall the one with the window? If the latter, you may want to move your storage rack over to the window wall.

Rearranging things may drive the Mrs. batty, but its more practical and straight-forward than doing structural things, which could make it harder for you to sell the house down the road. (Adding blocking is a pretty easy/benign thing, to do though.) After all, this is just a short term arrangement until you get a little older, other things move into the room, and its time to get fat like the rest of us!


As long as you aren't storing weight center-span on the joists, my greatest concern would be dropping weights on the floor and adding protection for that.

Two of the four walls in the room are an exterior wall. The wall the rack is against and the wall with the window. Yesterday I got all the material to sister the floor joist, add blocking, and to put a post and beam mid span of the floor joist. All of that together is probably the best and strongest I could possible make that floor.

 

[rlitman]

Two of the four walls in the room are an exterior wall. The wall the rack is against and the wall with the window. Yesterday I got all the material to sister the floor joist, add blocking, and to put a post and beam mid span of the floor joist. All of that together is probably the best and strongest I could possible make that floor.

It's way overkill, but if you don't mind doing the work...

As pointed out above, while the floor should be designed for 40 PSF live load, the strength near the walls at the ends of the joists would be much greater than that. It is weakest near the center of the joists. However, good blocking significantly improves the stiffness in the center.

Throwing your 2x10, 16" OC 13.5' span floor into a beam calculator, I see that at 40 PSF live load and 20 PSF dead load, your deflection would be under L/360 for the live load and L/240 in total. So, if 40 PSF live load is acceptable, your floor deflection without modification would be low enough to allow for a plaster ceiling underneath that floor!

In the real world, floors over wood beams don't fail at the design load. They just flex to the point that the plaster ceiling underneath would crack. Over a crawl space, you could in theory allow your floor to flex as much as a rafter is allowed (double the flex allowed in an ordinary floor), and still not be worried about failure.

My feeling is that your floor joists are plenty strong for your application, if adequate blocking is in place. I'd instead turn my attention to their ends.

One end is on an exterior wall. That side should be fine. The other end would be terminated on a beam. How? Metal joist hangers? Are all the nail holes filled properly. What is the construction of that beam, and what is ITs span?

 

[BB70Chevelle]

Wasn't fun but after a day and a half in my crawl space the work is done, all 2x10s are sistered with blocking between them, and a support beam at mid span.

Main beam is 3 2x12s attached together with concrete block supports every 6' OC. Beam originally had a 2x2 running along the bottom to support the joist, we installed double joist hangers and used all Simpson structural screws to attach them and to hold the sistered joist together the length of their span. For the beam i used 4x4 post with two adjustable metal post rated at 16k lbs each and used hurricane straps to screw the joist to the beam. Blocking was done with 2x10's installed midway from center beam to main beam and midway from center beam to sill plate.

 

[FTG-05]

 

[rlitman]

Wasn't fun but after a day and a half in my crawl space the work is done, all 2x10s are sistered with blocking between them, and a support beam at mid span.

Main beam is 3 2x12s attached together with concrete block supports every 6' OC. Beam originally had a 2x2 running along the bottom to support the joist, we installed double joist hangers and used all Simpson structural screws to attach them and to hold the sistered joist together the length of their span. For the beam i used 4x4 post with two adjustable metal post rated at 16k lbs each and used hurricane straps to screw the joist to the beam. Blocking was done with 2x10's installed midway from center beam to main beam and midway from center beam to sill plate.

Now you just need to buy a Sherman tank to park on that floor.

 

[njhoudini]

Sorry for seeing this late, but make or buy a deadlift platform. At one of my old jobs, (Division I football program), they used platforms for all deadlifting and under the benches to protect the concrete below each station. I would suggest doing this to protect your floors from potential damage.