tiling for under a very heavy object

[DrPud]

I’m planning on laying tiles down on a cement slab floor under my house for the purpose of an aquarium room.
The largest tank will hold over 1 ton of water and the stand will have 8 legs.
I need some advice on whether there are tiles which will stand up to this kind of pressure and if so how to lay and seal them correctly.<o></o>
Cheers

[Grahame Collins]

Hi and welcome,
I am not a tiler by any means but simple maths would suggest that each leg would only bear 1/8 th of the total weight,that there is not a real problem.I think a baseplate on the end of each leg would spread this load evenly.

Something along the lines of a 100 x 100 x 10 piece of plastic under each leg would spread the 125 kgs with no damage to said floor tiles.

The tiling would need to be properly done under each leg, meaning no voids or gaps under the adhesive, which would lead to a stress loading at that point below where the bases meets the tile.
Saying that, I have no experience at all with fish tanks on tiles.
I am sure a real tiler will give you a better opinion, shortly.

cheers
Grahame

[China]

DrPud, I too am not a tiler although I have done my fair share of tiilng, most car showrooms are tiled and most cars weigh more than 1ton. As Graham said you would not want to take any shortcuts when doing the job

[Ivan in Oz]

I've used a couple of Pieces of Insertion Rubber
cut to Size
under each leg.

6 Legs
Pool Table

[jedmanrocks]

Hi, the only issue you will have is the amount of adhesive under the tiles and the type of adhesive u use. When we tile garages or rooms with big pool tables or pianos I learnt a long time ago not to use the really flexable glues like ISOFLEX, X56, OPTIMA and the like. While their adhesion is excellent even after grouting there is to much give in the tile to handle a heavy weight. Being on a slab u can use a cement based glue ( cheaper anyway) and make sure you have no voids under your tiles ( 10mm notch trowel always notched PAST the tile your laying). When you grout, make it a really runny mix that will run well underneath the tiles and fill to the top of the joint, it means youll have to wait a bit longer to clean up but the result is well worth it. good luck.