• fishpen0@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I had a dream of owning a proper sized tub. Finally bought a house and got all ready to upgrade the bathroom and it turns out the tub isn’t even the expensive part. After talking with about 5 different general contractors and engineers, we learned that to hold up a real tub, the whole fucking house basically has to be rebuilt with twice as thick beams and twice as many 2x4s. Even putting one down on the ground floor is a full upgrade to the beams and posts in the crawl space and basement. It was going to cost ~25-50k in re-engineering of the framing and associated removal and repair of drywall/plumbing/siding/insulation/electrical/trim/flooring/etc… plus reinforcing the stone foundation

    Turns out most houses built on the east coast between 1800 and 1950ish literally can’t have a good tub because water is super fucking heavy and these things are built out of toothpicks

    • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I guess that makes sense, a lot of people didn’t have indoor plumbing until the early 20th century. Among the heaviest things in most homes was the people, so having a static object filled with nearly a hundred gallons of water Plus one or more people would be way above spec.

      • DrFuggles@feddit.de
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        7 months ago

        2x4s, I guess 😃

        but seriously, there’s many old buildings in Europe where you probably should consult a statics person before placing a large tub in your bathroom. Just guessing, but if you take a 300L bathtub which alone is a surprisingly light 30kgs and then put two people in it, you have a ~ 400kg load on a very small area