Can You Install a Pool Table Upstairs?

Jun 8, 2013

Many people have asked us if we can install their pool tables upstairs. Absolutely. Assuming your room is up to building code standards of course. Some of the homes that we’ve installed pool tables in upstairs have had floors that have flexed a bit. I’ve noticed this as I’m leveling up a pool table for the first time. With all three pieces of slate on top of the cabinet, we’re talking about over 500 pounds of weight on a standard-size pool table. When I would step close to one of the legs I’d notice the bubble in my Starrett Machinist’s level move a couple of lines out of level. Out of the hundreds of pool tables that I’ve installed upstairs no client has ever called us complaining that their table broke through the subfloor. I think that if certain floors bow a little more than others it might have something to do with how the floor joists are spaced out and/or how thick the subfloor is.

Now getting a pool table upstairs however that’s another feat all its own. In the past 20 years of working on pool tables, I can count on one hand the number of times we had to get real creative with getting a pool table in or out of a client’s house. I’ve heard some stories from clients who have said that they had used a crane to get their pool table into their upstairs game room. Possibly because their staircase may not have been built with enough room to carry the cabinet upstairs. I remember one time in Huntington Beach we were on a pool table moving job on the third floor and my client wanted his pool table disassembled and the slates crated up for a long-distance move. We could fit everything through the doorways and down two flights of stairs except for the darn cabinet. It was a pool table manufactured by Gandy out of Macon, GA, no matter what I tried the cabinet just would not come apart. Rack ‘Em Up People!