Bought a $200 'guy proof' shelf that collapsed in 20 minutes

Walked into Home Depot all confident with my tape measure and got talked into this heavy duty shelving unit for my garage. The box said it could hold 800 pounds easy and took about 45 minutes to put together. Got it assembled in like 30 minutes and started loading up my tool bins and spare paint cans. Heard a loud crack about 20 minutes later and watched the whole thing fold sideways like a cheap lawn chair. Lost a gallon of white paint all over my driveway and bent a brand new circular saw blade. Anyone else have bad luck with those modular shelf systems or should I just stick to building my own out of 2x4s?

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3 Comments

the_eric4mo ago

The 800 pound rating is a lie unless weight is evenly distributed.

8

joseph_ellis854mo ago

Wait, did your buddy actually try loading it up? My friend Tom had a similar thing happen with a utility rack on his truck. He stacked about 500 pounds of paving stones on there, but it was all piled to one side cause he was in a hurry. The whole thing just buckled and bent to the ground, wasn't even close to holding.

5

the_faith4mo ago

Wow, did the weight shift cause the whole failure?

3