So, the safe is coming Wednesday but i did some last minute checking and I’m seriously on the fence of where to put it. I was going to put it in our closet but I’m worried about the weight since it’ll be 1,100-1,200lbs full.

Has anyone had a safe fall through their second floor into their living room recently? Lol


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How many square feet is the foot print of the container? How many people can you have stand in that space at one time?

The next series of questions are...

1) How old is the house?
2) Do you know if there are any support walls under that location?
3) what’s on the first floor below that closet? Is it like the center of your living room, etc
4) how big of a safe (weight). 1,200 lbs empty.
5) are you planning to drill and have them secure it to the flooring?
6) are opposed to laying a solid sheet of solid flooring down? The larger solid floor would help dissipate weight.

7) have you talked to the people delivering and installing the safe. They do this for a living and would be a good source for questions and concerns.

When was your house built?

Ours was built in '24. The ship lap and 2x8 floor supports a 32" wide safe just fine. It's not in the middle of a joist span so YMMV

Most modern home can support that but the real question is how much more crap are you storing in there?

Are you planning on storing ammo too? Let them know so they can compute all the weight in that location.

The safe is 936sqft, house built in 2002, and the closet is above an open area but is right next to a load bearing wall.
I couldn’t find the home drawings to see where the joists are.

I am calling them tomorrow, just trying to get a good idea of what to say and how to go about this because I was convinced an hour ago we would have to look for another location.

The space in the closet doesn’t allow me to put a sheet of wood or beams. We are going to secure it to the floor.

I will not be storing ammo within the safe, I keep that separate from the guns.

Safe is 950lbs, will be putting close to 120lbs in there of stuff


Edit: we tried the weight thing, but I weigh 220, the wife is 115 and the mil is 105 lol, which is what my current safe weighs


That square I drew is roughly where the safe would be houses.

So, it’s next to a load bearing wall, but will be placed basically over a beam? I’d advise against that.

Cubic feet maybe? Or square inches?

You will be fine

Placing loads over a beam is kinda the preferred way to do it (?)

That wall is not a load bearing wall. The one behind it is. There's a beam next to the staircase opening and more than likely joists hangered off it

What am I missing

Lmao square inches. I’ve been drinking this amazing Japanese whiskey, lol

Yes. Having a safe placed over any solid and static member is preferred, but, unless that beam is designed for an additional 1200 plus lbs of dead load, a seismic event (known to happen) could make matters go from bad to worse. Having it along a studded wall with a shear panel would be optimal.

Also, looking at those photos, that might not even be a beam, it may just be a joist (or 2) running left to right. That would be even worse than a beam.

Given when the house was built I highly doubt that there isn't a beam at the change in ceiling height. It may be possible that there is a beam running the other way, off the wall at the top of the stairs. I'd have to see more details for that to make sense

In stead of thinking of it as 1200 lbs. of safe, think of it more like 300 lbs/sqft. It's probably less but the engineers like to over do things so go with that

6.5 sqft area holding over 1,000 pounds. So you're going to have, lets say, 184lbs per sqft. Seems reasonable but, the pro's would know better.

You should be OK against an outside wall and the base isn't filled with gold bricks interleaved 6 layers deep.

I trust modern design........my larger fear are cheapass building contractors and low paid crews. 1 nailing and such.....that said normal gun storage, and just a few boxes of ammo will be fine. Use a secure jobbox for your ammo stockpile.

But, he's bolting it down, and/or putting it on skids (airspace / shimmed), then the load isn't evenly displaced via the floor of the safe. It's point loaded on 4 pins. So the engineer in me (not registered) says the worst case scenario is 300lbs per point, which is less than 1sf.

If there is a beam there, then there is probably a framed wall above that beam, meaning the safe will be resting on the floor system just outside of the beam. This is an almost optimal location, IF, a few conditions are met. 1) The floor system attaching to the beam is either hung with proper hangers or the joists are on top of the beam. 2) The beam is designed to handle an additional 1200lbs of dead load.

Almost 100% of the tributary load will be placed on that beam. If the joists are just toe nailed 2x's at 24" o.c. because, closet, then you are going to have an issue.

That doesn't take into the possibility that there isn't a beam there, but a rim, a girder truss, a wind girt, or just (2) joists running the span.

I am playing a worst case scenario, but whenever I am designing a structure that's exactly what I have to do. (hence, the screen name, massivedesign)