Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Self Storage Shelving

My wife and I are renting a storage unit while we spend ~7 months living in Florida. We are keeping a good amount of the stuff we do not need to take with us (but we would like to have when we finally have more permanent living quarters or a house) in a self storage unit.
We have done this before but found that we wasted a lot of vertical space and had to be very concerned with how things we stacked.
This time we bought a few Husky Steel Garage Shelving Units in order to better maximize our storage space and it makes a world of difference.
The shelves are 77 in. wide, 78 in. high, and 24 in. deep. Each shelf (when evenly spaced as here) is rated for 2,000 lbs. per shelf.


We started with a blank 10' by 10' storage unit.

Each storage shelf weighs 138 lbs. in its box (and probably just about that much assembled).


The tools we had on hand were: a large flat head screw driver, a 45 oz. rubber mallet, a 7/16 box wrench (we did not use the 12 point ratcheting side), and two offset screwdrivers that we did not use (my father suggested having them on hand).

The shelving unit consists of two side frame, eight cross members (four front, four back), four middle joists, and four shelf inserts.

My suggest method of assembly is as follows:
1) connect bottom cross members between two side frames;
2) connect top cross members between two side frames;
3) hammer all installed cross members with mallet;
4) tip unit on its side and bolt in the middle joists for top and bottom;
5) tip unit back up right and hammer with mallet again;
6) position unit approximately where you want it leaving back access to put on rear cross members;
7) attach rest of cross members;
8) attach rest of middle joists;
9) move unit into final position;
10) add shelf inserts.
Note: we did not use the plastic push tabs because we plan to take these apart in the not too distant future.

The assembles unit looks as above.

You can bolt the base to the floor and the instructions suggest this. As this is in a storage unit we did not.

We then proceeded to start loading the shelves with the heaviest items evenly distributed along the bottom.

As we worked up the shelves we tried our best to keep weight distribution even.

The shelves feel very sturdy and well made to us.

The real test for us will be when we take them apart, move them, and put them together again. We will see how they hold up and how easily they come apart and go back together.

These should hopefully be with us for a long time. They seem very solid. We had one slightly bent cross member that we hammered more or less straight. Otherwise everything was in perfect condition. This allows much greater usage of available vertical space, seems well constructed, and is fantastic.
Would and may very well buy again.

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