LET'S TALK STANDARDS AND SHELVING BRACKETS FOR THOSE IN NEED OF SOME

[chief38]

I recently moved to a brand new home and unfortunately this home does not have a basement (my first house without one). Because of who I am, a workshop is a must for me and I also needed a lot of storage space for items normally kept in my basement. The very first thing I did was to install a Mini-Split 2 ton AC unit in the 3 car garage.

I despise the floor style racks because they encroach on the valuable room in front of the vehicles. I also needed shelving that was super strong and would hold lots of weight. After much thought, I decided to take advantage of my Garage's 11 foot ceiling and go with double slotted Standards and six prong brackets. After looking in the Big Box stores like Home Depot, Lowes, etc. I was not happy so I explored online. I came up and ultimately went with Knape & Vogt brand which manufactures their Standards and shelving brackets in the USA of very very heavy duty steel, powder coats them and they are way more stout than the Rubber Maid brand (flimsy Chinese knock off brand) sold in the big box stores.

After figuring what I needed I ordered the Standards & Brackets from a wonderful outfit called Woodworkers Express. Not only is their pricing unbeatable, but heir shipping is super fast and their return policy affords 100% refunds if you order too much of something. I have two different installation methods, one for Concrete Block and the other for Sheet Rock. For the Concrete Blocks I used 1/4" x 2 1/4" Tapcon screws and for the Sheet Rock I used a relatively new product called E-Z Ancor. The E-Z Ancor's are rated for 100 pounds each (in sheet rock) and each Standard has 6 of them holding them onto the wall. The Block Standards also have 6 Tapcon's holding them up. I also installed all the shelving so that I will not bump my head on them so they start at the 74" mark where I can easily walk underneath. I also used 1/2" plywood for the actual shelving and most are 16" deep but some are 13" and 6" in tight spaces.

So far I am quite impressed with the K&V Standards and Brackets and would highly recommend them to anyone needing adjustable shelving. They are far superior to the Chinese Rubbermaid knock offs sold in Bog Box stores at TRIPLE the price I might add! If in the need - contact Woodworkers Express online - they are FANTASTIC and have the best prices you will find! Hopefully I have helped out someone here who is in the market. And BTW, you can order as much or as little as you want from Woodworker's Express - no minimums!

 

[dmar]

Looks like a great solution, and thanks for the name of the USA manufacturer, it’s difficult finding good quality these days.

If it were my project, I’d find the studs for those standards. Wall anchors are decent, but I’d be much more comfortable with screws into studs for heavy weight. There’s only so much you can ask of drywall…

 

[Ranger17]

The few years we lived in SC we also had a home with no basement (up here we always have had one) so garage storage/layout was a premium need down there. We also had a high ceiling and I took advantage of it. Used similar shelving to what the OP has, and when anchored to studs seemed to hold anything we would put on them. And with a high ceiling, it allowed us to start some sections at 6’ off the floor to allow a path underneath for me. We were real happy with using that shelving system.

 

[tinkerer]

I put up the same racking system for bookshelves probably 20+ years ago. Components purchased @ Lowe's.
All steel - strong system.
Bolted into wall studs.
Good stuff.

 

[arjay]

I used them in my last new houses garage. I really liked having things up off of the floor and out of the way. I even had a full basement.I owned far too much **** back then lol

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

In the farm house I used that system in my gun room. The 9' ceilings made the bottom of a 5' standard right at 4'. Had that shelf 6" and the next 12", The top shelf was 18" wire racking and the 12' length of the wall was MEC shotgun loaders.

I had some plastic floor mount shelves rated at 300 pounds per shelf, that I put jacketed bullets at about 100-125 pounds per shelf. Over 8 years they drooped and would have collapsed if I hadn't moved.

In the condo, the reloading room is in the basement on concrete. I got freestanding industrial shelving units with 3/4" plywood shelves 2'x4', 5 shelves tall. The bottom shelf is exactly a 2x6 off the floor. I have 5 "sleepers" each, under all 3 units to support the heaviest loads! The bullet/ammo unit has 40 to 50 thousand cast bullets on the bottom shelf: that is a bit over 1000 pounds! (maybe 1500) I had the shelving units in my pantry at the farm house. They came with 1/2" particle board shelves, they collapsed under the relatively light weight of camping gear, let alone, can goods!

Ivan

 

[chief38]

Looks like a great solution, and thanks for the name of the USA manufacturer, it’s difficult finding good quality these days.

If it were my project, I’d find the studs for those standards. Wall anchors are decent, but I’d be much more comfortable with screws into studs for heavy weight. There’s only so much you can ask of drywall…

There are no real Studs. They use steel studs (20 gauge thickness I believe) which are paper thin and would only catch one single thread of a screw. They are so thin that you would most likely push or bend them unless you hit them dead center. the screws also tend to strip out the steel stud very easily - been there - done that. The only purpose of a steel stud is to screw the sheet rock to and any weight bearing stud has been sistered with a wood 2x4 stud. IE: door frames, structural walls, weight bearing walls. Even if hit dead center, steel studs are so lightweight the one thread they catch would be almost useless for carrying any real weight. The E-Z Ancors I used are rated for 100 pounds each in sheetrock. No way a thin steel stud would withstand 100 pounds - just too thin! While the screws may not just pull out at first, they could certainly shift, slip down to an angle and them possibly let the screw tear out. After screwing things into steel stud in my prior house I really do think the EZ Ancors will hold more weight than steel studs. Remember, there are 6 E-Z Ancors per 4 foot Standard section - strength in numbers.

The best way is if they did use wooden 2x4's but that is not the case where I now live. Concrete Block and steel studs are the way they build now.

 

[chief38]

Oh - and BTW, the shelving that has the heavy weight stuff on it is bolted with 1/4" x 2 1/4" Tapcon Screws into Concrete block. The shelving mounted to the sheetrock is for lighter weight storage.


This video shows how the E-Z Ancor is rated against others - I used the 100 pound rated ones and they far surpassed their ratings.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHb-Tcvkn7M[/ame]