How heavy a safe can I have upstairs?

[news.optonline.net]

x-no-archive: yes

I've been having a hard time trying to find an answer to this. I read something ( written by an engineer ) that said new homes are rated for 75 - 80 pounds per square foot in upstairs rooms. I suppose that's an average and means I could fill an upstairs room with a bunch of 80 pound children.

I have a small 120 lb safe in the basement, it's 93 lbs / square foot. If I take it upstairs, can I put it anywhere on the floor ?

Anyway, I want to buy a small high security safe that's 450 pounds and 195 pounds / square foot. Can I put that upstairs ? My ( uneducated ) guess is I could if I put it on a stand and distributed the weight. How does that sound ?.

Thanks a lot.

[Iggy]

replying to news.optonline.net, Iggy wrote: First, you must be familiar with your home's structure and which way structural members run under the floor. For example, you don't want additional weight either by or inline with the bathroom's tub or even it's heavy tile work...are you adding load to what's helping support the tub or bathroom or are you dumping more load on the same exact joists?

- Yes, an *empty* 120-lb. safe can go most anywhere. But, maybe you just bought a bunch of Gold or Silver ingots, now you start to have a problem. Therefore, a

450-lb. safe will need not only very careful placement consideration, but also possibly quite intrusive structural reinforcement of the floor its on (yes, even the flooring itself)...can you even get that up the stairs without breaking the stairs?

- And, let's say it's a Gun-Safe with hundreds of pounds of Guns and Ammunition. Sorry but, you're talking about 1-piano now becoming 2 or more because of the Safe's contents. I've seen and experienced significant many sagging floors just because of where the kitchen's refrigerator has always been or where someone added a closet or fairly short wall of "lightweight" studs and drywall. Take the Safe as seriously as your valuables or neither you nor your valuables will be safe.