On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:11:19 -0500, aemeijers
wrote:


Not about outlets, but when I girl I knew was moving, she gave me her
ex-husband's bookshelf, 4'x8 foot in back (and I have 8 foot
ceilings), with adjustable brackets, and about 16 inches deep.
Sixteen. Room enough for two rows of books if they are small. It
was in pieces at my old apartment, and when I moved into my new house,
I had to assemble it in place, without scratching the ceiling. Well
I did a pretty good job and it's been there carrying many books for 27
years, but 10 or 20 years ago, A) I noticed it leaning forward, on the
carpeting. Now the top is almost 2 inches in front of the bottom. In
another quarter inch, one side will be resting on the door molding, so
maybe it will stop moving then. (It has barely moved in 10 or 15
years, but you never know)

B) It's assembled with screws, but I also should have screwed the
sides together half-way up, by screwing each side into a shelf. Now
it would be easy to do that now from the side that faces the room, but
impossible to do it to the side that is right up against the wall.
And the vertical boards are indeed spreading at the middle, but not
that much. A half inch in 27 years, maybe. But someday they may
spread so much that some shelves won't sit on the brackets, which
stick out about 3/4 inch. When that happens, it may all fall down.
(It's only 6 feet away but I'm too lazy to get up and measure.)

Uh, will the ceiling actually keep it from falling over, or will the two
tons of books just punch right through it? 2 traditional ways to make
bookcases spill-resistant: 1. shim shingles, with blocks and cardboard
as needed, to create a wide-contact jam fit against ceiling. (good for
rental units) 2. Before you load it, lag it off to the wall.

Now as to the thing spreading on you- you will need to at least
partially unload it, and use pipe clamps or something to square it up,
before you add a couple bucks worth of deck screws at critical points.
You can always add a bar across the front, hooked into a block screwed
into the vertical members. Hardwood blocks, or something out of your
junk box- good chance to be inventive. I've even seen it done with pipe
flanges, iron pipes, and a pipe union in the middle. This was on some
huge deep shelves, about 10 foot tall, in an old classroom building at
college. I thought it was a coat rack that had been converted to shelves
at first, till I looked at it hard one day.

--
aem sends...

I'll thave to think about all this. This is a good day, since I can't
get out of the house, but I'd need parts from the hardware stores and
I'm sure they're closed.