Help with hanging cabinets

[Doug19]

I finally tracked down cabinets for my garage. I will need to hang them on a concrete block wall. Will blue tap cons work with hanging them on the wall?

 

[The Cobbler]

tapcons would be a good choice. install some french cleats to hang the cabinets on will make your job easier too.

 

[Doug19]

I plan on putting up pegboard so I can hang a 2x4 ledger to set the cabinets on it leave it up covering with pegboard. Then just tapcon the insides of the cabinet.

 

[Richard Cranium]

sounds like it should work.

 

[Cyberbear]

There are several methods for mounting cabinets to a wall surface. Tapcons are a good choice, if the wall is made of suitable strength material. I've had tapcons strip out due to poor quality concrete where the threads simply crumbled. I'm not familiar with "concrete block" walls, unless you are referring to what we on the west coast call cinder block. These are hollow units that are grouted in place like large hollow bricks and are made from a very porous material that can crumble easily. I often have used molly screw fasteners with great success, and I like the neat and tidy installation method. Toggle bolts are also good, if you have no plans of ever removing the cabinets and re-installing them later, but if you are hanging the cabinets by yourself, mollys are the ticket. It all comes down to what method you prefer for the load you will be supporting. Out here we definitely do not want the cabinets shaking off the wall.

 

[Bib Overalls]

Ledger is a super idea. Think about using a construction adhesive on the ledger to supplement your mechanical fasteners.

French cleat is an excellent idea if it can be made to work with your cabinets.

 

[Kaizen]

I wouldn't mess with tapcons through the back of the cabinet. much easier to tapcon the French cleat and just hang them. plus the connection will probably be stronger.....depending on what your cabinets are made of. also more versatile in the future if you want to move things around.

 

[astroracer]

I'll say french cleat as well. I do this with all of my wall cabinets. Put a ledger underneath for extra support and use that to hang wrenches and oft used tools, tape, and clipboards.
Mark

 

[Voi]

I agree with the French cleat idea. It will give you the most flexibility for adjusting cabinet position without removing and reinstalling tapcons. You can either slide them sideways or take the cabinets off the wall and adjust the cabinet cleat height to adjust the overall height, assuming you accounted for enough adjustment in the first place.

The only downside to French cleats as I see it is if you want the top of the cabinets flush with the ceiling. To do this would mean sliding your cabinets onto the cleat from the ends of the wall cleat and sliding them to their final position. This assumes you could have sufficient space on at least one end of the wall cleat wide enough to get the largest cabinet started.

And even then you'd have to have a perfectly flat and level ceiling to have the cabinets truly flush.

As far as tapcons, I always installed them in the mortar joint instead of the block itself. That's the way an old timer taught me to do it and I stuck with it. I believe tapcon says either in the mortar joint or in the block itself is fine. Don't quote me on that.

 

[EdT]

+++ on french cleats. IMHO Tapcons should work fine, but It couldn't hurt to put some adhesive behind the cleat before you set the screws. One thing I have found with french cleats is that if the wall isn't flat there can be problems. Depending on the situation, you can get around it by using several cleats ; one for each cabinet section. This would be an excellent application for Gorilla glue, but watch out, it will run down the wall so put some tape along the joint or mask the wall with newspaper or something to catch the drips.

 

[MikeYC]

French Cleat offers more flexibility later on down the line. I love my system. also offers a place to hide speaker wires