When choosing to fit out an office with raised access flooring, a recurring question or worry which may circle your mind is “what weight can my raised access floor tolerate?”. We wish that there was an easy solution, but the truth is that there isn’t one simple answer that fits across all floors! There are a number of factors that need to be considered to calculate your floors weight allowance so today let’s walk through those in a little more depth, allowing you to feel relaxed on the weight of your floor.
Our aim is to allow our clients to be comfortable and aware of the functions and capacity limits of their floor and that is why we work to calculate their specific weight tolerance before laying the pedestals. To do this, we first calculate the design load versus the working load.
Design load is simply the weight that a particular panel is designed to hold.
Working load is the way in which the panel bears any weight.
We will then take into consideration the ways you intend to utilise your flooring, allowing us to reach your raised access floorings specific weight tolerance. For this, we will need to know:
- The point load – The point of which loads are fitted and restricted to a fixed area, such as cable racks.
- The rolling load – A weighted load, such as a cable tie, but which is fitted to allow dynamic movement.
- Storage – The consideration of your storage and whether it is to be static or moved frequently.
- Foot fall – If your flooring is laid in a location of heavy footfall, such as retail, higher-load panels will be required.
Calculating the total weight tolerance of your floor will become possible once these combined factors have been discovered. Dependant on your requirement for footfall, whether you have more restrictions with rolling load than you do for point load and if your storage is considered bulky, these elements will lead us to the perfect panel design for your flooring need, ensuring that it can withstand the ways in which you plan to utilise your it with. This careful and constructive planning will also total a cost-effective solution due to the minimal need for repair or replacement work as your floor has been designed and assembled for your specific requirements.
For further information on the weight tolerance of your raised access floor, or to talk to a member of our Fieldmans Access Floors team about any other flooring query, give us a call on 020 8462 7100 or drop us an email at where we will be happy to help.
