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Worried about the weight of Travertine Natural Stone on raised wooden subfloor
QUESTION
Install Stone Over Wood Subfloor - We are getting ready to install Travertine Natural Stone 18"X18" in our kitchen. It is a raised wooden subfloor. I am worried about the weight of the stone. There is a solid concrete wall underneath the two long sides of the kitchen. There are plenty of concrete pillars in the middle of the floor. Do you have any suggestions to ease my mind? or resources?ANSWER
ANSWER - I can’t really determine if your floor is sturdy enough for the Travertine tiles by your description. If your floor isn’t sturdy enough it can be adjusted to be sturdier.The concern on whether your existing floor is sturdy enough to hold the weight of stone is an issue of whether the floor will have excessive deflection or not when subjected to a 300 lb concentrated live load per the standards.
That means once the floor is installed and you have people or objects going over it will it deflect too much. The marble standard over a wood subfloor as you have is 1/720, which means that the floor can not deflect more than 0.0167 of an inch up and 0.0167 of an inch down within a 24 inch span.
Your floor has joists and depending on the type of joists, the spacing of the joists, what type of subfloor you have on top of the joists, and type of a tile installation assembly you install on top of it will determine if your floor is constructed correctly.
You need to hire a structural engineer to determine whether your floor is sturdy enough or not. If not, then the structural engineer can prescribe how to further brace it to be sturdy enough.
Rule of thumb is that if you put a full glass of water on a table on the wood subfloor and you jump up and down you shouldn’t feel a bounce and the water should not spill.
It is best to install the tile over a cement base or a cementitious backer board following TCNA Tile Installation guidelines. Good Luck!
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I want to use travertine tile on a hearth. I have a soap stone stove that I want to put on the hearth setting it on top the tile. The weight of the stove is close to 400 pounds. Will the tile crack? Or will it hold up the weight of the stove?
It depends on what’s the substrate condition and whether the travertine tile is properly installed.
If the travertine substrate is structurally sound such as solid concrete or brick and the substrate is adequately supported then I would expect it to handle weight. As long as the travertine tile is fully supported by the thin-set mortar adhesive and there are no voids under the tile and that the tile is adequately bonded to the substrate.