oh also in newer cut-up homes joists also usually run the shorter distance but the joist direction will some times be switched in a bump out or bay window area, four seasons room ect. if your puttin up a 100 gal. + if it were me id gently cut out some drywall out of the celing below carful not to damage plumming or duct work check it out and pay jonny fix it man 50 bucks to fix it it.
... if it were me id gently cut out some drywall out of the celing below carful not to damage plumming or duct work check it out and pay jonny fix it man 50 bucks to fix it it.
Keep in mind that in a home built in 1890, it's likely to be lath and plaster. It's not necessarily a simple job cut it open, like dry wall, and repairs can be complex and will often show.
I live in an area where there is alot of home building going on.Depending on the distance to the main beams I have seen that they can be placed in different configurations room by room since there is usually one or two 2 layers of plywood sheathing over them! Even though My Tank sits on a wall that is right on the main supporting beam and the joists run perpendicular under it, a builder friend still recommended putting jacks under the the area about two feet out from the beam that in fact supports the upper floor and roof of the house.Again we are talking about just around an extra ton of weight with the tank, stand,water, rocks, and substrate.
good point davidh202 when you get in 5000+ or even smaller "cut-up" homes they can get creative with the joists. also good point davek even with plaster it would much less $$$ to R&R plaster than to have a tank potentialy damage your carpet, sub-floor, joist(s) and if you lose water wow call the insurance co. actually thats how i got in to salt water 29 gal freshwater tank broke water everywhere so i rebuilt bigger and badder.
Joists always run the OPPOSITE WAY when you walk through the FRONT DOOR. So if you walk in through the door from the south your joists are overhead running east and west. If you walk in from the west, your joists run from south and north.
Chubosco has a 50% chance of being right. The other rules of thumb have a better chance of being right. The thing is, not even the blueprints are a sure thing. Very rarely, I've seen where due to some unforseen reason some of the floor joists have to run the other way than planned. And that brings up the subject that in some house plans, the joists run at different directions in different parts of the same floor level. When I added on to my house, I doubled the joists
that ran along the wall, in case I would ever want to put a tank there. For years we had a 135 on that wall with no problems. If I hadn't done that, I could have built a stand that ran from one end of the wall to the other. That would spread the weight if built for that purpose, and the rest of the stand could hold plants, books, etc.
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