What's the best way to strengthen the floor?

[Fifer]

Hi all,

My husband John and are getting ready to do our conversion in the next couple of weeks. We don't even have the seats out yet, but we've been spending all fall discussing the best way to go about things. One thing we haven't quite figured out yet is the best way to strengthen the floor. What is the heaviest thing you all have put in your bus? Did this require you to put any reinforcements down?

Here's our issue. ..

When we first decided to do a conversion, there were only a couple of things that we both unanimously agreed on and one of those things was a cast iron clawfoot tub. As a matter of fact, it's the first thing that we purchased for our conversion. The one that we bought, we figure weighs between 300-400 lbs when empty, probably between 650-800 when full of water and people. Does anyone have any similar experiences that we can benefit from?

Thanks!

[KC10Chief]

That's nothing for a bus. That weight is going to be distributed out over the floor too. I really wouldn't worry about it. I have an insanely heavy couch in my bus right now. It's over 300 pounds. Doesn't hurt the floor at all! There are people who turn these things into car haulers and put jeeps and things like that on the floor. You're not going to hurt it! Don't forget about Jason the jacuzzi guy on this forum. He's put jacuzzi's in several buses now. That's a LOT of weight.

[BusNut]

The heaviest thing I've got is a full size home style refrigerator/freezer. I would estimate about 400 pounds loaded. Weight comes down on the standard casters in the base, so it does put a fairly high psi on the floor. I installed 3/4" subfloor, on top of 2x2 framing filled in with rigid foam insulation. Under the refrigerator I ran extra 2x2's (12" centers instead of 24"). No problems at all.

As pointed out by KC10Chief, the bus floor in general won't have any trouble with the weight, especially since the tub will be empty when in motion. But with a "clawfoot tub", you should do something to distrubute the weight from each leg, especially with the potential for dampness in the area. It probably maxes out at about 1000 pounds, depending on how much water, which would put 250 pounds on each leg. Since each leg has a very small footprint (proably about one square inch actual contact area, this exerts a very high psi load unless the load is distributed with a high strength rigid surface. Properly distributed, the thousand pounds or so is no problem at all for the floor in general. One idea that could look nice would be to use stone tile over 3/4" exterior grade plywood under and around the tub, either placed directly on the existing subfloor or supported on 12" centers. Sure that adds even more weight, but that too is not a problem for the bus floor with the weight distributed.

hth

[sportyrick]

the floor in my BB has crossmembers every 9", you could park a tank in there and not worry about the floor sagging. You might put an extra sheet of steel, maybe a 1/16 or 3/32 under the feet of you tub to keep it from indenting the floor where it sets, then put bolts through the feet to keep it in place. You WERE going to bolt it to the floor wern't you? sportyrick

[Fifer]

Yes, we are most definitely going to bolt it down.

Thank you all for your informative answers. It's really put to rest some fears that I had.
Thanks!

[lapeer20m]

heaviest thing.....jacuzzi with 400 gallons of water in it. prob close to 4K pounds.

there are at least twice as many beams on the floor as there is on the ceiling. the claw foot tub will not be a problem for a bus.