strain on the ceiling? should i worry?

saonny

we have a house built in the 1800's, - the living room celing has exposed wooden beams. upstairs in the bedroom, we have 2 bookcases which are full, and therefore quite heavy. my boyfriend has been worrying that the floorboards seem squeaky, and thinks its something to do with the weight put on them
should we be worried about the celing collapsing?? - i think there is nothing to worrya bout and the house would have been built very stabely...
if there is cause to worry, is there anything we should be doing to re-inforce the floor/celing?
thanks

Ukuser

you could:

1) remove some books from the shelves to lighten the load
2)If possible move the book shelf away from the centre of the room as much as possible and ensure it sits across the joists.
3) Have some shelves put up on the walls and have the books moved onto them therfore taking the weight off the floor.

CLAPTON

seems unlikely to me

squeaky floorboards are usually simply not nailed down properly (or the nails have broken which would be very likely in an old house )

first try moving the books and see whether the floor boards are still squeaky

do the beams seems to bend when someone walks upstairs?

webwalker

saonny wrote: »

we have a house built in the 1800's, - the living room celing has exposed wooden beams. upstairs in the bedroom, we have 2 bookcases which are full, and therefore quite heavy. my boyfriend has been worrying that the floorboards seem squeaky, and thinks its something to do with the weight put on them
should we be worried about the celing collapsing?? - i think there is nothing to worrya bout and the house would have been built very stabely...
if there is cause to worry, is there anything we should be doing to re-inforce the floor/celing?
thanks

Houses built during this period tended to be over built, the furniture was heavy and the floors designed to carry tremendous weights by todays standards, if your floorboards squeak it's because they are moving and require re nailing.

Having said that, exposed beams were not a normal feature so it may be worth checking to see if the floors have been relaid, you should be able to tell by lifting one floorboard, the joists would be 8 or 9 inches deep in the original construction and would have softwood braces between each joist at about 18 inch centres to stop the joists twisting out of true.

saonny

thank you all... no the beams dont move when someone is upstairs... i think lifting up one of the floorboards is a good idea, at least to prove how sturdy it may be! - we are planning to move one of the bookcases downstairs, so the load wont be so great... but as i thought, it shouldnt be much to worry about
thanks again

ormus

as long as the joist are in good condition, there is nothing to worry about.
houses, like other things, were overengineered in those days. i wouldnt worry too much about the weight upstairs.

even today, engineers use a (typical) 1.5 safety factor, (ie above the max load) in designing products.