Expert: Dan Griffin - 2/20/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hello. I'm considering leasing a space on the 7th floor of an old brick factory
building. I have some fairly heavy machinery that I wanted to bring into the
space:

1st piece (5ft x 3.5 ft weighing 1366 lbs = 77 lbs. per sq. ft.)
2nd piece (3.3 ft. x 3.3 ft weighing 2000 lbs = 200 lbs. per sq. ft.)

Do you think it is safe to bring these machines up to such a high floor? How
can I find out the load capacity of the floors?

ANSWER: Michael, I have no way of knowing or calculating the bearing capacity of the floor.  Contact the building owner and broach the subject with them.  It would be unusual for a 7th floor to be designed for that type of loading.  It would be quite dependent on the original use of the building.  It would be an unusual elevator to deal with these loads, I assume you weren't planning on taking them up by hand on the stairs.  Current public corridors are designed for 100#/sf loading.  Office space is more in the 50 # range.

Someone will need to know or find out the size of joists and the span to be able to answer your question.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your very complete answer. I thought I would provide a link to
the pictures of the actual space to give you a sense of the structure. It looks
very solid and designed for heavy loads:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/off/1039661059.html

I'm trying to get a sense of whether I'm absolutely limited to ground level
workspaces based on the machinery I will be using. By the way, the actual
machine I will be using is like this:
http://www.apmcorp.com/Atom-SE.htm
So should I be looking exclusively at ground level/basement level spaces?  

Answer
Michael,  this looks like a neat place.  If this place was an old warehouse, the load capacities could be well over 100 per sf.  It looks like the floors are polished cocnrete.  Locating a machine close to one of those columns sure would transfer the loads.

Contact the lease company.  They are already prepared for artistisans and sculptors and it has a loading dock.  I'm sure they will know about the loading strength.  The web site of machine you have makes them look like pleasant machines, you can certainly offer to keep the machines on plywood or other isolation matting to protect the floors and any sound trasmission.

I've only been to visit New York, I envy the shear number of things to do.  I hope this venture works out for you.