Shelf collapse

[LBRJ]

I was in one of my "locals" earlier today when one of the shelves next to the bar area they keep "stuff" on just collapsed.

 

After assisting the staff person to get it sorted, it appears that this heavy shelf (20lbs?) which was intended to hold quite a lot of weight was glued on with only a couple of brad nails in each bracket - I guess to hold it while the "glue" set

 

Is this the modern idea of  what is quality workmanship on a £400k pub refurb??

 

I was genuinely lost for words!

[chris p bacon]

I wonder that things like this are because 'interior designers' don't want to see fixings as they think it ruins their designs.

 

Back in the late 80's/early 90's I did lots of work in McDonalds and Burger Kings in the West end of London, when they were refitted the interiors got ever more elaborate and more difficult to actually install. It got to the point where they delivered some 'bar like' eating tables where the customers sat on stools, they were 4' high and about 18 inches wide and were stood on 2 thin legs, the only fixings were 1 bolt into the floor at the base of each leg, the leg was only 2" in diameter. I refused to fit them as I pointed out that they would be over within days when the first person pushed on them to get on a stool. The designer was there and did not understand and said they would be fine. I said I would only fit them if they had a plate/foot to them so they subcontracted to another to fit. 

He fitted them at about 2 am ( we worked nights) and they were over by 10 am in the morning, with the customer taken off in an ambulance as they'd banged their head on the tiles when they went over. The designer still took some convincing and tried to blame the subcontractor for poor fitting. 

[kevinlms]

I wonder that things like this are because 'interior designers' don't want to see fixings as they think it ruins their designs.

 

Back in the late 80's/early 90's I did lots of work in McDonalds and Burger Kings in the West end of London, when they were refitted the interiors got ever more elaborate and more difficult to actually install. It got to the point where they delivered some 'bar like' eating tables where the customers sat on stools, they were 4' high and about 18 inches wide and were stood on 2 thin legs, the only fixings were 1 bolt into the floor at the base of each leg, the leg was only 2" in diameter. I refused to fit them as I pointed out that they would be over within days when the first person pushed on them to get on a stool. The designer was there and did not understand and said they would be fine. I said I would only fit them if they had a plate/foot to them so they subcontracted to another to fit. 

He fitted them at about 2 am ( we worked nights) and they were over by 10 am in the morning, with the customer taken off in an ambulance as they'd banged their head on the tiles when they went over. The designer still took some convincing and tried to blame the subcontractor for poor fitting. 

Sometimes you have to stand your ground. Not easy if you are a sub contractor and need the work.

[SRman]

It may have involved a shelf company.

OK - hat, coat, etc. ...  

[PatB]

Nothing wrong in principle with glueing stuff together. Ask any Mosquito pilot.

 

However, it's got to be done properly, with a suitable adhesive used in accordance with its manufacturer's  instructions, and attaching to an appropriate substrate. In the case of the shelf in the OP, for example, glueing a wooden shelf to a robust wooden structure should be fine, if done properly. However, glueing it to a plastered wall (or worse, a painted one) means that the structure would be reliant not just on the adhesive, but on the bonds between plaster and masonry and between paint and plaster, along with the tensile strength of the plaster itself. None of these can be relied on, especially in tension.

[Robert]

Oh dear!

 

A few years ago, I was putting up a shelf for a friend.  I asked what was due to be put on it, and was given the answer "a few light ornaments" - The shelf was errected accordingly. 

 

What actually ended up on it was a large box full of china - with predictable results.

 

Now, in similar situations, everything gets over-engineered!

[SRman]

I had this argument with my wife a while back: she wanted to hang a large, heavy, framed picture map on a wallpapered wall. She wanted to use those stick on hooks one can buy. I tried to explain to her very carefully that, in spite of the manufacturers' claims about the load the hooks and glue could take, the wallpaper was the thing that would be taking that load and, in short, would allow the picture to come crashing down while ripping bits of wallpaper off at the same time.

I eventually hung it up using a wooden batten with screws into three wall studs.

[amwells]

Having once put a shelf up completely inappropriately when I was a lot younger (with inevitable consequences), I have always been very wary since of my capabilities...

 

so it was with trepidation that I put up three Aldi cabinets side by side in the new railway room. Secured by (lots of) screws through ply into studs before fixing the cabinets onto the ply. They are still up and I don’t think I can pull them down, but I’ve still got the ‘you’re no good at this’ in the back of my mind, expecting to walk in one day to see lots of locos on the floor in a pile of glass and wood.

 

I will keep convincing myself it’s ok!

[jjb1970]

Adhesives are excellent when used in accordance with manufacturer instructions and where whatever is going to take the load is suitable. The problem is that people glue stuff onto things that just aren't suitable for the load and/or don't follow instructions. Some of the adhesives used in engineering are pretty much equivalent to welded joints and incredibly strong, but they're not cheap and the bond is very sensitive to correct preparation of the joint area and use of the adhesive. Paints/coatings suffer the same issue, it doesn't matter how good they are if used inappropriately things are unlikely to end well.

[Mark Saunders]

Having once put a shelf up completely inappropriately when I was a lot younger (with inevitable consequences), I have always been very wary since of my capabilities...

so it was with trepidation that I put up three Aldi cabinets side by side in the new railway room. Secured by (lots of) screws through ply into studs before fixing the cabinets onto the ply. They are still up and I don’t think I can pull them down, but I’ve still got the ‘you’re no good at this’ in the back of my mind, expecting to walk in one day to see lots of locos on the floor in a pile of glass and wood.

I will keep convincing myself it’s ok!

Over engineering is what we do at home but look at a screw coupling on a locomotive and the drawbar it is tied on to and realise there is 2000 tonnes of train behind it, it looks flimsy in comparison!

[Enterprisingwestern]

I wonder that things like this are because 'interior designers' don't want to see fixings as they think it ruins their designs.

 

Back in the late 80's/early 90's I did lots of work in McDonalds and Burger Kings in the West end of London, when they were refitted the interiors got ever more elaborate and more difficult to actually install. It got to the point where they delivered some 'bar like' eating tables where the customers sat on stools, they were 4' high and about 18 inches wide and were stood on 2 thin legs, the only fixings were 1 bolt into the floor at the base of each leg, the leg was only 2" in diameter. I refused to fit them as I pointed out that they would be over within days when the first person pushed on them to get on a stool. The designer was there and did not understand and said they would be fine. I said I would only fit them if they had a plate/foot to them so they subcontracted to another to fit. 

He fitted them at about 2 am ( we worked nights) and they were over by 10 am in the morning, with the customer taken off in an ambulance as they'd banged their head on the tiles when they went over. The designer still took some convincing and tried to blame the subcontractor for poor fitting. 

 

Fitting kitchen equipment can get interesting in such places, the manufacturer wants you to secure the equipment to the floor or they won't be responsible for the guarantee, but the architect/builder won't let you puncture the waterproof floor membrane. I just introduced them to each other and let them get on with it!

 

Mike.

[Wheatley]

Sister-in-law glued one of those multiple-coat-hooks-on-a-bit-of-wood things to their newly redecorated hallway wall with No Nails, and not suprisingly it fell off a couple of days later bringing half the wallpaper with it. She swears blind to this day that there was nothing wrong with her bit and still blames her husband for not sticking the wallpaper to the wall properly.

 

Conversely a mate was once asked to put some shelves up for his brother "strong enough to put my LPs on". 25mm blockboard on wrought iron gallows brackets, anchor-bolted into a 1930s party wall made from what we assumed to be engineering brick (based on how many drill bits we went through drilling the holes)and the bolts glued in with silicone. They make quite good bunk beds.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Wheatley

[TheSignalEngineer]

Sister-in-law glued one of those multiple-coat-hooks-on-a-bit-of-wood things to their newly redecorated hallway wall with No Nails, and not suprisingly it fell off a couple of days later bringing half the wallpaper with it. She swears blind to this day that there was nothing wrong with her bit and still blames her husband for not sticking the wallpaper to the wall properly.

 

Conversely a mate was once asked to put some shelves up for his brother "strong enough to put my LPs on". 25mm blockboard on wrought iron gallows brackets, anchor-bolted into a 1930s party wall made from what we assumed to be engineering brick (based on how many drill bits we went through drilling the holes)and the bolts glued in with silicone. They make quite good bunk beds.

 

My standard test for fixing things to walls was 'Will it take my weight?'

[chris p bacon]

My standard test for fixing things to walls was 'Will it take my weight?'

 

I'd never get anything fixed then. . . .

[Kickstart]

Hi

 

I tend to work on the basis that if I am bodging something, I over engineer the bodge!

 

All the best

 

Katy

[sharris]

Sometimes you have to stand your ground.

 

Unlike the tables 

[The Stationmaster]

Over engineering is what we do at home but look at a screw coupling on a locomotive and the drawbar it is tied on to and realise there is 2000 tonnes of train behind it, it looks flimsy in comparison!

 

Bit OT but a modern 50 tonne coupling should take a trailing load of 5,000 tons (sorry to mix the units) with no problem - something wrong if it won't.  And of course they're not exactly 'flimsy engineering'. and from experience with a really heavy train load (12,000 tonnes of it) the bit that is most likely to break is not the shackle itself but the hook.

 

And back to shelves.  Having noted many years ago the propensity of relatively short chipboard furniture shelves to bend under a few books I have always tried to use the right materials and fixings so solid timber shelves with proper brackets and on stud walls the brackets are screwed to the studding, not to the plasterboard;  none of mine have shown any sign of movement (as yet).

[gismorail]

Nowerdays the designers have come up with 'floating shelves' which great till they become sinking shelves ......

[kevinlms]

I was in one of my "locals" earlier today when one of the shelves next to the bar area they keep "stuff" on just collapsed.

 

After assisting the staff person to get it sorted, it appears that this heavy shelf (20lbs?) which was intended to hold quite a lot of weight was glued on with only a couple of brad nails in each bracket - I guess to hold it while the "glue" set

 

Is this the modern idea of  what is quality workmanship on a £400k pub refurb??

 

I was genuinely lost for words!

But wait a minute, no one said anything about putting anything on the shelf. It was just there to look good!

 

Could have been worse, it may have been the shelf with all the spirits on. Now that would have been a disaster! 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I wonder that things like this are because 'interior designers' don't want to see fixings as they think it ruins their designs...

 The piratical assumption of the term designer by someone who is only a stylist.

 

There's altogether too much of this 'form over function' crap going about, well illustrated in the UK by the wobbly footbridge event on the Thames. I recall the collapse of a largely glass footbridge over a hotel atrium some time in the last millenium in the USA, and live in daily expectation of similar events. The high capacity resort 'cruise ships' top my list of very likely to fail someday with very unpleasant consequences, others may have similar junk in mind...

[Horsetan]

 

My standard test for fixing things to walls was 'Will it take my weight?'

I'd never get anything fixed then. . . .

 

Has anyone tried levitation?

[Enterprisingwestern]

Has anyone tried levitation?

 

What has a staion on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway got to do with it?

 

Mike.

[Kickstart]

Has anyone tried levitation?

Never succeeded.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Kingdom2]

My standard test for fixing things to walls was 'Will it take my weight?'

40 years ago we bought our first house, built in the 20's and nothing done since. Father in Law and I began a refurbishment, and when we came to the kitchen, planned to do it in two stages. In the first stage we hung new kitchen cabinets and he did his standard test of gripping the central shelf in the cabinets and lifting himself from the floor (as he said, double banked tins of food weigh as much as me).  Two years later, after FiL' s death, I started stage two, but when I hung on a cabinet, I ended on my back on the floor with the cabinet on top of me, with four bricks surely screwed to the corners, and four holes in the wall ...

 

John 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

... when I hung on a cabinet, I ended on my back on the floor with the cabinet on top of me, with four bricks surely screwed to the corners, and four holes in the wall ...

 Since you are not complaining of any injury, it's tools out and investigate the construction quality then.

 

Over the years I have seen some atrocious building, both 'as constructed' and 'as meddled with post construction'. My own little gft in this field was on noticing movement in our home  following a prolonged dry spell. Long story short, having engaged a surveyor who investigated what was going on underneath, it was found that the adequately deep raft had been cast in two shots, filling first one end of the hole, then the other end, not one shot as specified, and the foundation was hinging on the joint. Had it been a single pour of either the weak poorly bonded lot, or the proper stuff, or had the weak layer been levelled off, with the strong layer on top, then there would have been no trouble.

 

I have already mentioned here the likes of finding 'bricks' made out of tightly compressed newspaper and floor timbers reduced to less than half their original section. I have also seen old - almost certainly original - internal brickwork mortared with what might politely be termed 'weak mix' or more accurately sand with clay. Funnily enough that was on the outskirts of Sandy, Beds.