Victorian cast Iron Bath - can bathroom floor take it?

monkey_writer

Hello,

We have a victorian terrace house with the bathroom on the 2nd floor. We want to put in an original cast iron victorian roll-top bath, but hear they're very heavy. How would we be able to find out if our floor joists / floorboards could take it? What could we do to reinforce them to ensure that all is okay?

Thanks!

sillybean

I would be very careful about putting a cast iron bath in. If it’s a terrace house, then its not likely that the bathroom was always a bathroom and therefore would not have had a cast iron bath. If it’s a big fancy posh house then probably it did, but not in the room you think is the bathroom.

There is something called a point load, this is the maximum your floor will take at any point and its allowable to have one point load in the bathroom. To find out what your point load is you need to talk to your planning office, they will either know or direct you to the correct literature.

Next, actually putting it in. I would not put it in myself unless I had taken up the whole floor and checked the entire length of the beams that it would be sitting on. Mainly for wood worm because any of that and your likely to have the bath come down on your head during breakfast in a few years time. Any spills or leaks in the bathroom will soften the wood and the additional standing weight will not be something I want to watch.

Re-enforcing the floor? Yes you can, but its going to be expensive and its going to take to long to explain all the options here. The main thing is though it depend on where the room is, where the bath will sit, how heavy the actual bath is etc.

Remember the bath probably weights some 100kg, then the water is another 50-60 liters or kg, then there is the weight of you. So your talking 200kg + if it were me sitting in the bath your looking at almost 250kg which is a lot of weight and you don’t want to be just putting it into your bathroom without thinking carefully first.

monkey_writer

:-) Thanks so much Silly bean. Much appreciated in depth answer. I would press the thanks button, but it doesn't seem to be there...