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Posted: 1/16/2009 11:52:16 AM EDT
| My house is built on a crawl space with standard floor joist. I was think of getting a safe to put in my closet and was wondering what kind of weight limit I might be looking at. Thanks |
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If you are on a crawlspace like I am, why don't you do like I did? I bought a 1300lb safe and was concerned like you. I called the guy that builds the safes and owns Smith Security safes. He asked what size a safe I was considering and I told him. He asked what options, like fireproofing. He determined it would weight around 12-1400lbs and I SHOULD reinforce the floor. I went into the crawl space and dug down with a military entrenching tool about 2 ft. max. I put in a flat cement block in the bottom of the hole and a couple of blocks on top.
I made a couple of these and made stringer with some 2x10s about 4' long. This stringer was put under the safe under the floor joists on top of the blocks. I put it there then sandwiched some wood wedges to make a tight fit. I then attached the new stringer to a main one with some cross joists and nailed them from the outsides and toed them inside too. After installing the safe, I went under to see how it was sitting and then again a month later and there is no movement. You can look at how they have some of your load bearing walls supported under your house to see how you need to do that and attach to those supports. I mortared the concrete block joints then. I probably did not need to do that. Hope this helps. Good luck. P.s. used to live in Seneca a long time ago |
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Standard wood floor framing is usually good for a 500-800 pound static load roughly the size of a safe. Putting the safe over main beams or ground supports is also good sense. Personally I'd reinforce the floor as much as possible as described above. In a house with a basement, I go for sistering joists and multiple steel jacking columns below.
But I've seen major framing damage (multiple cracks joists) in old houses from safes over time. Never seen one fail though... |
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