Opening a Gym - Examing the Floor

What type of professional would you call to examine the structural integrity of a building? An engineer or contractor?

I’m opening up my own gym in an addition portion of my house. The floor is concrete but I have no idea how thick it is. I’m assuming its reinforced. Below the gym floor is a dirt floored “bomb shelter” storage type of basement.

I probably have nothing to worry about, especially considering most of our clients won’t be handling super heavy weight, but you never know. I still want to get it checked out for liability purposes.

Anyone?

well, you’re going to have to have a fire inspector come by. maybe he’ll know.

Pretty much any competent contractor would know.

[quote]Dolce wrote:
Anyone?[/quote]

Civil engineer.

Most people confuse architect and civil engineer so i thought i’d clear it up (since you are probably wondering yourself).

The architect works with the space of the building. The look it has and so forth.
The civil engineer does all the calculations and is preoccupied with the structural integrity of the entire thing. He has to design the sewage system, water system, electrical components and so forth.
What you can do is find out who designed the building and he could advise you.
Good luck.

I thought there were people specifically called “building inspectors” but aside from that legendary would be correct in that you would want a civil engineer.

[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
Dolce wrote:
The architect works with the space of the building. The look it has and so forth.
The civil engineer does all the calculations and is preoccupied with the structural integrity of the entire thing. He has to design the sewage system, water system, electrical components and so forth.
What you can do is find out who designed the building and he could advise you.
Good luck.[/quote]

I can assure you a Civil Engineer will do no designing of electrical systems. Firms employ Electrical Engineers to do that. Civils can design the CARRIERS of the electrics, like making sure that the right structural pieces are avoided when you’re drilling through them, but beyond where holes go, I wouldn’t feel qualified to design dick.

A Civil Engineer CAN, however, determine structural integrity. Find a friendly one, buy him a case of beer, and give him the plans to your house. The plans that are given to the owner for reference generally include all the information necessary for structural “spot” checks to be done. Your friendly engineer, however, will likely tell you that you should get someone to do a full inspection, make sure that the same members in the plans were used in construction and other things like that.

[quote]samdan wrote:
legendaryblaze wrote:
Dolce wrote:
The architect works with the space of the building. The look it has and so forth.
The civil engineer does all the calculations and is preoccupied with the structural integrity of the entire thing. He has to design the sewage system, water system, electrical components and so forth.
What you can do is find out who designed the building and he could advise you.
Good luck.

I can assure you a Civil Engineer will do no designing of electrical systems. Firms employ Electrical Engineers to do that. Civils can design the CARRIERS of the electrics, like making sure that the right structural pieces are avoided when you’re drilling through them, but beyond where holes go, I wouldn’t feel qualified to design dick.

A Civil Engineer CAN, however, determine structural integrity. Find a friendly one, buy him a case of beer, and give him the plans to your house. The plans that are given to the owner for reference generally include all the information necessary for structural “spot” checks to be done. Your friendly engineer, however, will likely tell you that you should get someone to do a full inspection, make sure that the same members in the plans were used in construction and other things like that.[/quote]

Oops, sorry. I did not mean (s)he designs the electrical systems themselves. I meant the layout concerning them, just as you mentioned. My bad.