Steve's workshop - Painting the outside walls

[nanscombe]

When laying a floor like that couldn't you treat it like installing a floor in your loft where you would have a network of timbers (joists), to support the weight of the actual floor, infilled with insulation.

 

[Doug B]

Well a builder I trust says it is. It's called a floating floor. The Jablite site shows it being used in this way.
It will have 40mm board on top of it.

I've seen it used many times in houses but how it will stand up to use in a workshop is another thing, there's usually some give when installing heavy items such as larder unit on it.

 

[Graham Orm]

I laid 3x2 and filled the voids with insulation then put my ply down onto the 3x2

 

[Steve Maskery]

Now you are getting me worried, chaps.
S

 

[Graham Orm]

Can you test a section before going further Steve?

If you're putting two layers down and you cross the joints of the first with the second, then pepper it with screws to tie them together it will be fine I reckon.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Yes we are criss-crossing the two layers, but glueing rather than screwing, as the top layer is the finished floor.

 

[Graham Orm]

I should think It will be fine as long as you don't need to lift it for anything.

 

[Wizard9999]

Yes we are criss-crossing the two layers, but glueing rather than screwing, as the top layer is the finished floor.

If you're glueing it all together it would be a right pain to rip it all up if you find that it can't take the weight of your heaviest bit of kit. I'm sure that they'll be a complicated formula or two to work out the concentration of the load on to the relatively small points touching the floor and then how it spreads through a floor of your thickness and construction. But it brings me out in a sweat just thinking about it, so I would have thought doing a test now before you finish would be a good idea.

Terry.

 

[nanscombe]

If you were that worried I would have thought that sitting your heavy equipment on a couple of wooden planks would be enough to spread the load adequately.

I once wondered about the weight (mass) of a cabinet in my bedroom then I thought about it and realised that when I'm walking about I'm putting a load of 130ish lbs on the area of my feet.

 

[Graham Orm]

Thinking about it, with 2 layers of ply glued together, (I'm assuming 36mm total), you could probably park a car on it and it wouldn't cause a problem. Dont panic Captain Mainwaring, all will be well.

 

[Water-Mark]

I started reading this at 7 30pm and have only just finished.

Very impressive.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Get a life!

Glad you are enjoying it.
S

 

[turnamere]

The finished floor will spread the load over a considerable area, a few years ago we used 3 4'x4' pieces of 1" ply, one under each wheel, to land a Merlin Helicopter on a soft field, that's 14,600Kg and only 3 contact points :mrgreen:

Great work though Steve, truly envious of your workspace =D>

 

[TrimTheKing]

When we have to put large UPS's into comms rooms in work, they strengthen the floor using steel box section frames under the specific area. Could you do the same with some 4*2 or whatever depth the insulation is, under just the sections where you know the machines will be? That way you know the floor is strong, and you can still infill between the frames with the insulation to keep the benefit.

Or is it too late now?

Cheers
Mark

 

[Eric The Viking]

The finished floor will spread the load over a considerable area, a few years ago we used 3 4'x4' pieces of 1" ply, one under each wheel, to land a Merlin Helicopter on a soft field, that's 14,600Kg and only 3 contact points :mrgreen:

I have a wonderful mental picture of that:

Helicopter hovers around 1ft off the ground; two blokes in overalls jump out, try to grab hold of said ply from bloke in cabin before the downdraft sends it into the next county, lots of fidgeting about until all three are in the right place, then a soggy splat.

I have a sad life...

 

[Owl]

I have a sad life...

I would say you have a good imagination Eric =D>

 

[dickm]

I would say you have a good imagination Eric =D>

Even more off topic, but............
Years ago, some bigwig was visiting my place of work by helicopter. They put down on the very soggy turf outside the main building. Chopper surprisingly stayed more or less on surface, but bigwig sank up to ankles. Can't remember who exactly he was, but do remember he was some sort of politician so well deserved it.

 

[RogerS]

Eric Pickles?

 

[StevieB]

He said ankles, not neck

 

[HarryJ]

...we used 3 4'x4' pieces of 1" ply, one under each wheel, to land a Merlin Helicopter on a soft field, that's 14,600Kg and only 3 contact points...

Making the assumption that the helicopters mass is evenly spread over the three wheels when landed (which it probably isn't!), that leads to a pressure of abotut 4700 KiloPascals (KPa) through each point of contact with the ground...

-To put that into perspective, the average person when walking will probably produce a pressure of about 49KPa (whenever they are on one foot)

So take from that what you like, its some pretty useless information but I was curious... (hammer)