Very heavy tools in residential garage?

[Brian Kincaid]

Anybody have problems with heavy tools in a typical residential garage (concrete slab)?

I'm pending a pretty heavy piece of iron (just under 1 ton) and I wanted to see if I should take some caution in its placement. I have nightmares of it cracking the floor and I'm not knowledgeable enough to say whether it will or not.

-Brian

[Eric DeSilva]

My instantaneous reaction is that your garage better withstand that kind of weight, since a lot of cars/trucks get into the 1T or more territory...

[Russ Buddle]

The total weight compared to a car is irrelevant. The potential problem is the footprint (pounds per square inch of bearing surface), and the vibration over that footprint.

Do you know how thick your slab is??

[Mitchell Andrus]

I know a fella who moved a 1,800# metal lathe into his garage. Two of the rigger's wheels punched through the concrete just 10 inches inside the door (the soil under this area had subsided). It's not the load over the entire footprint that you need to worry about, it's the point load that will cause the fracture and failure. It was an old substandard pour. If your floor is 3, 4, 5" thick you should be fine.

If in doubt, run it in on 3/4" plywood and make some pads to set it on to spread the load.
.

[Mike Cruz]

I would agree with spreading out the load (with plywood) as much as possible. You also might want to put some sort of rubber mat, or rubber feet under it so that the vibration of the machine doesn't cause issues.

As for vehicle weight, my 3/4 ton pickup weighs 7,500 lbs. That comes to about a ton per tire, and each tire's footprint is about, what 50 square inches?

[Bruce Page]

I have a 1 ton milling machine placed in the corner of my shop. The pad started to develop a crack after about 5 years. My wife freaked out but there's not much I can do about it - I'm not getting rid of the mill...

[Foras Noir]

Don't know what the object is. That could be important.

Here is the deal - if you are for real - and you seriously are dealing with things like this, find a new friend. That friend will be a structural engineer. They are interesting, capable people. The cost for a simple consult like this is - well, nothing.

I build and run huge shops with huge machines. I find engineers to be partners. They love this stuff. In my case, I found one that shares some common life interests. We talk, go over interesting ideas and I sleep better.

This board is no substitute for professional help. Reach out, buy people a few beers, have a barb-BQ. Develope a community.

You too can sleep well.

Have fun and keep pushing those limits.

[Dan Friedrichs]

This board is no substitute for professional help. Reach out, buy people a few beers, have a barb-BQ. Develope a community.

That's right - this board is no substitute. Beer and BBQ, on the other hand...

[Aaron Wingert]

Look at it this way...
Your concrete in your garage is probably at least 3000psi mix. That means it has a crush resistance of 3000psi. Could be 2000, could be 6000. The psi strength of the concrete has nothing to do with its ability to flex, resist cracking, etc. Either way you're covered. It won't divot the concrete unless you balance the entire machine on a single 1/2" point.

It is not uncommon for garage slabs to undermine due to soil settlement however. When they backfill the foundation walls that form the garage "box", many contractors do not work really hard at compacting that soil properly. So a couple years later the soil settles down an inch or a foot, leaving the slab floating in space. Many builders and code enforcement folks plan for this and require rebar and even piers/grade beams to be put in/under the slab to help it be self-supporting should the soil settle. Only way to know for sure is to drill a small exploratory hole through the slab and probe it with a rod. If you hit dirt or gravel you're good...If you hit air you might think twice.

I honestly have very little concern that a one ton machine with a decent footprint will cause much trouble.

[Jason Roehl]

I would agree with spreading out the load (with plywood) as much as possible. You also might want to put some sort of rubber mat, or rubber feet under it so that the vibration of the machine doesn't cause issues.

As for vehicle weight, my 3/4 ton pickup weighs 7,500 lbs. That comes to about a ton per tire, and each tire's footprint is about, what 50 square inches?

If you've got a ton on each tire, and they're aired to 50 PSI (I keep my 3/4 ton at 51 PSI front and 80 PSI rear), that works out to a 40 square-inch footprint per tire.

A friend of mine who has since left the company his mother owns used to have footings poured in their small manufacturing shop to hold their hydraulic press brakes (100-ton brake capacity, I think). I don't recall how heavy the machines were, but they had a large front-end loader with forks on it solely for moving them one time to a new building, and it could barely handle it. The floor would get cut out, and a 3' deep pad poured a little bigger than the footprint of the machine. Or something like that. But those are some big ol' machines. One ton is nothing.

[Eric DeSilva]

The total weight compared to a car is irrelevant. The potential problem is the footprint (pounds per square inch of bearing surface), and the vibration over that footprint.

Do you know how thick your slab is??

And why do you assume that the footprint of a car isn't within the same order of magnitude at least? I think you might see a little lower down in the thread that, in fact, it is.

This is a common sense question in my book. I had no qualms about putting an 800# planer on a three wheeled mobile platform in my garage. With the hard little wheels, that is well over a ton per square inch. If force of 1T/in^2 would punch holes in your concrete, whoever put the slab down did a lousy job. And, you better not invite any women in stiletto heels into your garage.

In fact, I would argue that for almost anything within reason (unless you are balancing 1T on a pinhead), the total weight is probably a bigger factor than the PSI you generate. I'm guessing you are much likelier to crack a slab than punch a hole though it.

[george wilson]

I had a 3000# lathe,a 2500# milling machine,and about a 1500# milling machine,and at least 2000# of metal in my former 18 X 24' shop with a 4" floor. No cracks. I was there for over 15 years.

[Jerome Stanek]

concrete is plenty strong as long as it has a base to sit on most concrete can take 5000 lbs per square inch as long as it is sitting on a solid surface if there are voids then you get weak sections.

[Eric DeSilva]

I had a 3000# lathe,a 2500# milling machine,and about a 1500# milling machine,and at least 2000# of metal in my former 18 X 24' shop with a 4" floor. No cracks. I was there for over 15 years.

I'm jealous. I wish I had a 3000# lathe and a 2500# milling machine... I'll be lucky to fit in a mini-mill and 8x14 lathe once my garage is cleaned up.

[Van Huskey]

Concrete itself will unlikely be any issue unless it was shoddy mix or a late or otherwise bad pour. The real issue is the substrate it is poared on and unless you were there when it was prepped you will likely never know. That said I would not have any issue rolling in a 2000# machine onto my 4" garage floor as long as it had a decent footprint but I would consider some vibration control depenng on the machine which you did not specify.