Laminate floor & heavy object.

[Tony Falotico]

I'm continuing the wood laminate (floating) floor into the bedrooms. In one of the bedrooms I have a ParaBody EX500 excersize machine, a slightly humongous (three station) and extremely heavy piece of equipment.

I'm beginning to worry about putting that much weight on the 'floating' floor. Obviously, nothing is going to move once the machine is placed and set up.

Two Questions:


What can I put between the feet and floor ? I'm thinking about 1/4 - 1/2 inch hard rubber pads. Also, should I consider a large pad (one piece) for the entire footprint?
What long term / permanent damage might I be looking at on the floor ?? Anything I should be concerned about?

[John Miliunas]

Tony, not personal experience but, here's my .02: Logically, I think I would vote for one large piece, which should help distribute the weight and not create pressure points. However, depending on the flooring material, what you may find is, after a length of time, oxidation and UV may affect the rest of the uncovered floor, while the area under the pad will be more pristine, due to the protection from the elements. Just something to consider when it comes time for resale or possible reallocation of the room for some other use. Like I said, just my .02...:) :cool:

[Lee DeRaud]

I kind of doubt that machine weighs much more than the refrigerator I have on my kitchen floor, and probably also has a bigger footprint (lower per-square-inch loading).

The real issue would be if you had two very heavy loads "locking" the floor down at opposite ends of a long span. Two loads close together aren't nearly as bad, since the movement is much smaller over that distance. A single localized load just means that any movement is relative to that point.

Remember too that we're talking about small movement here, maybe 1/4" to 1/2" total over 15-20'.

[Larry Norton]

Tony, we have 4ft by 6ft stall mats at Tractor Supply, I think they're about 1/2-5/8in. thick, about $44 each. Solid rubber, with diamond plate pattern on one side and grooves on the other. The only problem with anything like that is the possible damage to the finish on the floor from it laying on it for a long period of time.

[Tony Falotico]

Holy catfish.... got so worried about weight, never even considered the finish fading issue. It all depends on what I can find, but sounds like some sort of rubber pad cut to set under each foot (it has several steel plates for feet, about 2" x 3" each) may be the way to go. Soft enough to protect the floor, but hard enough to withstand the weight and not bounce.

Where should I begin looking for something like that? I'm almost sure the big box won't be much help.

Lee, it has 20 10lb weights, is made of 2" square steel frame, pretty substantial ... I'm thinking 400 lbs (maybe). Not sure what a refridge weighs in at?

[Lee DeRaud]

Lee, it has 20 10lb weights, is made of 2" square steel frame, pretty substantial ... I'm thinking 400 lbs (maybe). Not sure what a refridge weighs in at?My medium-sized side-by-side probably isn't quite that heavy empty, but you gotta figure 100lbs or so of, um, sundry liquids :cool: and frozen stuff are in it at any given time. And all it's sitting on is four 3"-wide rollers, so the surface loading is pretty high.

One of those big SubZero units probably makes your exercise machine look portable. :eek:

[Lee DeRaud]

Holy catfish.... got so worried about weight, never even considered the finish fading issue. It all depends on what I can find, but sounds like some sort of rubber pad cut to set under each foot (it has several steel plates for feet, about 2" x 3" each) may be the way to go. Soft enough to protect the floor, but hard enough to withstand the weight and not bounce.The laminate is already as hard as it needs to be...what you need is to keep the machine from moving around and scratching the surface. Maybe some of that rubberized non-skid pad stuff they sell to go under area rugs?

[Per Swenson]

Lee is right.

The floating floor is going to expand and contract with the weather.

Dosn't really matter how much weight is on it ,it is going to move.

Slowly, like a glacier. Couple of small pads as Lee describes on the

4 corners, the exerciser becomes a non issue.

Per