Maximum load on over-hanging balcony

[Maleg]

Originally Posted by Zoomerang

I love this! My fees for forensic engineering investigations and legal/insurance support are 50% higher than my regular design fees!

What are your fees for advice without reviewing drawings or calcs?

[hambone1983]

Originally Posted by Zoomerang

I love this! My fees for forensic engineering investigations and legal/insurance support are 50% higher than my regular design fees!

people like me give people like you job security. It's our function in life's colorful pageant.

[Boopie]

Originally Posted by monsieur_z

I have a question for building structures engineers here.

My neighbour is moving out and "giving away" (means I help him take it out) a 150kg+ tree, estimated weight for pot + soil + plant, 2 men can barely lift off the floor.

I'm wondering how safe is it to store on my balcony? The balcony has a rectangular shape, about 3m by 8m, there are walls on both short sides below, the long side is over-hanging. This is in a newish residential skyscraper.

I already have many plants on the balcony, so I'm wondering how much load is too much?

Thanks

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Tree alone is over 300 pounds, and two men can barely lift it? Hard pass.

Concur about checking with your building manager for authorized loads. It’s one thing to have people stand on your balcony briefly, but quite another to have something that heavy in one place, applying that load constantly.

I have a balcony on my house. Just because I can briefly stand on it to put the flag out on the flagpole without the balcony collapsing from underneath me doesn’t mean I could park an object my weight on the balcony.

I thought I read something about balconies supporting 50 pounds per square inch…so, if you have a potted tree that’s 350-400 pounds, that might translate into your being able to have fewer people safely on your balcony with the tree.

[Zoomerang]

Originally Posted by Maleg

What are your fees for advice without reviewing drawings or calcs?

Feel free to DM. I won't charge you for advice. Happy to help if I can.

[Zoomerang]

Originally Posted by hambone1983

people like me give people like you job security. It's our function in life's colorful pageant.

Glad we agree on that..

[Zoomerang]

Not quite the same situation as the OP has (balcony construction is different, loading is different) but balconies can fail.

In lovely California, there is now a law requiring inspections of balconies on multifamily structures which came as a result of this tragic collapse in Berkeley.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/artic...se-6329902.php

[alex.cicollo]

Find another tree the same size and weight and place it on the other side of the balcony. It’ll distribute the weight.

And it will look much nicer and more balanced.

[monsieur_z]

Thanks all for the informative posts. I saw this Miami condo collapse. Some YouTubers commented that heavy gardening work, as well as thick marble countertop/walls addition could have put an excessive stress on the 1960's building, contributing to the collapse.

So I took the tree (had to get help from professional movers), and put it on another terrace that is not over-hanging. I'm not too scared but I will honestly watch for new hair lines cracks, or worsening of existing ones.


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[Rock]

One of the most entertaining threads for some time. Thanks for the laughs.

Here in Aus there were a number of collapsed balconies/verandahs in the news in recent times. They were wooden ones and yours is a concrete one but the same rules apply.
There have been a large number of "Jerry-built" high-rise in the news as well. Kind of diminishes your faith in the government regulation that is supposed to ensure big structures are safe.
The other day I saw a gardening show where this guy had a regular garden's worth of plants on a medium-sized concrete balcony. At the time I thought it was a disaster waiting to happen.

[Dr.Brian]

In the grand scheme of things this tree doesn’t weigh very much. If it couldn’t support that, it can’t even support 2 fat people. Nobody’s building a large balcony that can’t support 2 fat people and a couple of chairs and a table. If it was a 3000lb+ hot tub it would be a different story.

[Maleg]

Originally Posted by Dr.Brian

In the grand scheme of things this tree doesn’t weigh very much. If it couldn’t support that, it can’t even support 2 fat people. Nobody’s building a large balcony that can’t support 2 fat people and a couple of chairs and a table. If it was a 3000lb+ hot tub it would be a different story.

True. If the concrete balcony can’t safely support one plant the building would be unsafe for habitation. Having ten of these plants would be a different story.