Placement Question (weight)

[rtparty]

I'm helping a buddy figure out how large of a tank he can put on his main floor. I know there a lot of variables in play but I'll do my best to explain what I know.

It will be on a main floor about 15 feet from an exterior wall. (Trying to get some pictures)

The basement is finished below. There is a wall in the basement about 2 feet behind where the tank would sit. I'm hoping the joists are sitting on that wall.

The joists are 24" on center (seems odd since 16" seems to be code here.) The joists are roughly 2.5" by 11.5" and are TJI (spelling?) They will run perpendicular to the tank. Meaning he could possibly span 4 but would probably only hit 3 for sure with a 6 foot tank.

He is planning to find an engineer to come out and inspect it all. Before that, I want to see if it is even possible to go with at least a 180. To be safe I'm assuming at least 3000 pounds with everything...

Anyone here educated enough to at least give a valid opinion?

Thanks!

 

[TylerS]

I can't really say much about OK vs not OK (definitely get an engineer out), but you should account for deflection as well as making sure it doesn't fail. You want to have him make sure that if it's level when you start filling with water it stays level when it's full and doesn't start to tilt.

I'm a mechanical engineer and I'm still having a structural engineer come out for my build. You need to know building design loads and allowable stresses and whatnot to do it right and structural engineers are really the only ones who know that info. I've thought about trying to figure it out but I'd rather not risk it.