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Re: archives design--load weight



Heidi,
Aaron Cohen's book Designing and Space Planning for Libraries (R.R. Bowker Co., 1979) is one relevant source for floor loading specifications.  You should be looking at a live load of 150 pounds for stacks.  50 pounds is the usual floor loading criteria for general office space.  I don't think a structural engineer (or honest city building inspector) would let you triple the safe floor loading.  One would be courting a general collapse of the floor structure,  Dick King, University of Arizona

Heidi Christein wrote:

Please post responses to the list; I'm interested too.

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: Lisa May [mailto:lmay@DIOGH.ORG]
Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 3:22 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: archives design

Our Diocese recently acquired an historic building in downtown Houston, the
first floor of which will be converted into a chapel.  The Archives is
supposed to move into the top three floors.  The building was largely
unoccupied for years, and there's been a lot of deterioration.  The design
firm/architects (who for complicated reasons aren't working directly for
the Diocese) have assured me that the upper floors "should" bear a load of
50 pounds per square foot.  They informed me that I can therefore have two-
shelf units to store our records, without overloading the floors.  I
informed them in return that two-shelf units are completely impractical in
an archives, and that the floors should bear much more than 50 pounds (we
estimated a minimum of 130 pounds).

Does anyone have design specifics for their facilities, particularly floor-
loading requirements, that they'd be willing to share?  I checked the
archives for this topic, but I found mostly discussions of layout & of
things like carpet vs. tile.  The publications I've checked also tend to
focus on those aspects.

thanks in advance,
Lisa

Lisa May
Archivist
Diocese of Galveston-Houston

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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>