busyLivin

I'm thinking about making my extra room into a home gym. I have a bunch of equipment I had at my last place: dumbbells 5-70lbs, rack, benches, plates, elliptical, etc.

My question is about the weight of all the equipment. I now live in a 3rd floor condo. Is there anything to worry about? I talked to a cousin in construction who laughed it off & said even really old houses are built to withdstand thousands of pounds in a single area, but I don't know how reliable that information is.

The dumbbells alone are over 1,000 lbs. My gym is close & relatively cheap, so it's not the end of the world if I can't do it safely in my condo... my membership renewal is coming up & I got to thinking about the thousands of dollars i spent to not have to pay gym memberships anymore....

Thanks for any advice.

Doublebase

I don't know much about construction. If your cousin says it fine then it probably is. I would just make sure you disperse the weight evenly. Put your dumbbells on one side and your plate trees on the other. Also, you may want to get some heavy duty rubber mats to put down in case your drop an 80lb db or w/e. Good luck.

"A child does not learn to squat from the top down -- in other words, he does not suddenly make a conscious decision one day to squat. Actually, he is squatting one day and makes the conscious decision to stand." - Gray Cook

busyLivin

Thanks. I have pergo floors.. I'll be getting some kind of rubber flooring if I go ahead with it. My dumbbells are actually on two different racks.. one with 360 pounds, the other with about 690.. i can have them on opposite walls.

Prince

I would contact the builder of the condo unit.

IronMagLabs 1-ANDRO Rx Pro-Hormone - BUY 2 GET 1 FREE SPECIAL!


BOARD SPONSORS:

• MassNutrition.com - Discount Supplement Superstore
• AlltheWhey.com - Bulk Protein Powders
• CEMProducts.com - Research Chemicals & Supplements
• MusclesProd.com - Steroids, Bodybuilding, Fitness & Training Blog.
• Maximizer.com - Maximizer Strength for Maximum Performance
  

Befriend on Myspace    Follow on Twitter

IronAddict

You'll be fine, but if you have people living right below you, that may cause some unwanted aggrevations. Especially, if they're an older couple, you may want to be a considerate neighbor and bring this up to them.

For this reason, condos are not for me.

The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

maniclion

What kind of construction material is your building made of? If your floor and ceiling are cement then you should be perfectly fine, is their a balcony? The floor of the balcony should be just an extension of whats beneath the whole unit. How old is the building? What's the spread of the 1000 lbs per foot? Probably somewhere around 250 or less, that a person, even if it were more think about a fully stocked side by side fridge or a king sized water bed, those things are very heavy.....

You should be fine unless you're in some ancient building......

Your dumbell rack will likely be against a wall which should be the strongest point if you had anything to worry about at all.

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison: In conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone

busyLivin

flexicore.. yeah, the balcony is all cement. The building was built in 78.

busyLivin

The sound issue I'm not too concerned with. The people below me are near my age & I have a great relationship with them... and I'd never work out really early or really late. If they had a problem, they'd come talk to me about it. I will mention it to them that I'm considering it though..

maniclion

That's even better having 2 separate racks the weight is distributed even better.... Think about when people have parties, ten people in the living room would be over 1000 pounds.

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison: In conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone

maniclion

When I lived in a condo it was like living in a cement bunker, the only time I heard noise was from one of my neighbors open balcony door and they had to really be cranking their stereo for me to hear it. In fact the unit 2 floors directly below us caught on fire and the only thing that we got was some smoke stains under our balcony and the smell of smoke in our furniture, carpet and curtains. That building was built in the mid-70's.....

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison: In conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone

busyLivin

yeah, I care rarely hear anything in there unless someone is in the hall