google told me paper weighs 75 pcf and internet explorer said 133 pcf....plus weight of cabinet.....? Plus some people put things other than paper in their cabinets. Lotsa cabinets can be challenging.
The commentary to ASCE 7-10 has some discussion on file cabinets and recommends 150 psf provided a 36" aisle is maintained. See the bottom of page 407 for the assumptions.
This may be a conservative estimate since it assumes the file cabinet is completely full of paper weighing 75 pcf and aisle fully loaded at 50 psf. And, if you are using strength design, this is multiplied by 1.6 (so ASCE 7's recommendation for 5 drawer file cabinets seems reasonable).
Just make sure they aren't using the motorized file cabinets that slide laterally and allow the elimination of any aisles and allow very close packed files.
Yes I can make assumptions, but my intent of this post was to find out if anyone knew the weight of lateral filing cabinet and contents. Thanks for the responses, they are much appreciated. I will check the internet to see if any manufacturer gives the cabinet size and weight. I can weigh he contents, but I do not have equipment to weigh the cabinet.
wannabeSE: your weights are much too high. I know from weighings of various file contents that I have dome over the last 30 years in various offices that it is not anywhere near that heavy. Paper is not packed in at that density. But thanks for the considerable effort that you have gone to in your response. Much appreciated.
ajk1,
I know 75 psf is very high. For paper storage, the California Building Code specifies 33 pcf for the total volume of a cabinet (footnote n of table 1607A.1 at
A while back, I evaluated a floor for Times 2 Rotary File Cabinets and the manufacture's literature uses 2.32 pound per inch for letter files and 2.95 pounds per inch for legal files. See page 19 (pdf page 20) at
