Floor Stability Question

By | Friday, September 28, 2012 Leave a Comment
I used to use my spare bedroom as a sort of comics office. I kept all my long boxes in there, as well as a bookshelf or two of graphic novels. Plus, I had a comfy futon to relax on while I was reading, and my computer was there as well. Which meant that I had quick and ready access to my whole collection while I was writing.

Eventually, though, I started getting enough comics that I was growing concerned about all that weight in one spot. This was on a second floor, so it was basically sitting on some 2x10s set 16" apart with a piece of cheap plywood laid on top of them. You know what your bookshelves do when you have them filled with books for a long time, right? The same thing is likely to start happening to that kind of floor eventually.

So, out of structural concerns for the house, I moved my whole comics collection to the basement, with its cement floor.

As you've hopefully heard, I'll be moving in the near future. At this point, I don't know what my new house will look or be structured like, but there's the possibility that having my (now considerably larger) collection sitting directly on a cement floor can't happen. So, my question out to you at the moment is...

What sort of weight issues/concerns do you know about with regard to comics storage?

I currently have 30-some long boxes and four or five bookshelves' worth of graphic novels. With no exaggeration, that's over one ton of paper. That seems like way more than I should put in a normal second floor guest room, especially since it would have to be stacked at least somewhat. Is there a way to (reasonably) reinforce that if necessary? What if it's on the ground floor over a slab basement? Or am I looking at enough weight now that a cement floor is really the only safe way to go?

Any structural engineers out there who could help me out?
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments: