Unistrut shelving

[garrett1812]

I am planning to build some open shelving in my garage, and want to build in the style of this fellow GJ members post. At about 30" deep (four 1x8 12' boards), about 24-30" below my 10' ceiling.

I am wondering if the short vertical pieces on the wall are necessary, or if I can simply bolt corner bracket to the wall? I was planning to use 3/8" lag bolts unless someone suggests otherwise?

 

[klassenl]

Only one way to find out.

 

[rayra]

Short verticals are likely just because he had the material to spare. And chose to do it that way to attach the horizontal supports to them.
I've done similar shelves over our garage door, but just a frame out of 2x2s, with a vertical 2x2 at the outer edge up to the roof rafters and just attached some metal strapping with screws as reinforcement. The 2x2 frame is lagged right into the garage door header. Skinned with thin plywood, screwed to the 2x2 frame, so it's a sort of stressed skin supporting. We put bulky light Christmas decor up there, they aren't under any heavy loads.
Been working that way for over 20yrs.

Unistrut would be expensive overkill for our use. What's your intended load on your shelves? Keep in mind that wood is strong in compression and weak in span. But a simple design can be very strong for very little cost, using wood.
Unistrut is 'easy', but it gets expensive fast. Anythign metal these days seems terribly inflated for what it is.

 

[Thumper68]

No you do not need the Unistrut on the wall, lagging the angle directly to the studs is fine.

The only time I would use the strut on the wall is if I needed some adjustment.

 

[bczygan]

I would do it exactly as shown.

 

[Modern Jess]

As long as the free ends are suspended by rod to the ceiling, the short verticals do nothing. I would skip them.

And if you want to get really fancy with strut channel shelving, check out my build thread.

 

[bedn0009]

I did this on both sides of my garage last winter. Overkill for sure, but the space is maximized.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=314766

 

[Vinko]

I know a guy that used unistrut for a second "loft" floor on his building. Maybe about 1200-1400 sq ft. About 12" off the ground. Turned out really nice.

 

[jeff000]

Hey that's my garage! Awesome.

The vertical struts were originally for uniformity with the rest of the garage and so if I decided to add more shelves I could **** up a piece of strut.

It's stronger than anything I care to lift up that high.

 

[bugnout]

I'm doing something similar in my garage. My plan is to run unistrut the full 24 ft length on the ceiling to hang 6 sections 2x4 foot wire shelf supported by 24 ft of unistrut and threaded rod. The wall side of the shelf will be supported by a ledger board. I was not planning on any other horizontal support as the wire shelves have a 260 pound wieght capacity.

Funny, I had just been looking through old posts for project ideas. Good timing!

Wire is on order, I'll post pictures when I'm done.

 

[garrett1812]

Thanks for the input all! I started with wire shelves from Menards but ultimately opted for 1x10 boards. Here are a few pics of the results. Everything attached with 3/8" x 2.5" lag screws. So far looks great. Only thing is I'll probably change is replace the square washers under the unistrut with a fender washer inside the channel on the unistrut, so nothing protrudes.

 

[BrianJ]

If I may ask, where did you source the unistrut hardware from?

 

[garrett1812]

Menards

 

[Richard Cranium]

why didn't you paint before putting up the shelving?

 

[alien]

Looks nice. Another option instead of the unistrut on the ceiling you could use lags that are 1/2 lag bolt and 1/2 machine screw and a rod coupling down to the strut supporting your shelves. The joists are usually next to the stud so the wall bracket should still be able to lag into a stud.

Your way has lots of adjustability and is really overkill. I build pipe racks out of unistrut and your shelves are well built!!

 

[garrett1812]

There was no time to paint before shelving. Need to get cars back in the garage before winter. Once it's ready to paint though it will be easy, just take the boards off and there is a lot of room to work, will just need to mask off the pieces at the wall and ceiling. Painting is not quick because the tape/mud job is terrible. Just done for fire rating, it's all needs taken off and redone before paint. Maybe in a few years.


In my case none of the studs aligned with the joists above. Unfortunate, but what is nice is that every horizontal support off the wall is supported by two joists above.

It is a bit overkill, and cost more than a wood shelf, but I like the flexibility, and the design minimizes the amount of unistrut needed. Best of all it was really easy to work with solo compared to 2x4 shelving, at least for me. Even screwing the 10ft piece on the ceiling was easy to do alone.

 

[Vinko]

This looks great. Nice job!

 

[padroo]

If it were me I would mount a continuous 2 X 4 on the wall and set the unistruth on top of it, it would be strong and look cleaner.