Metal shelves can be a tempting quick out-of-the-box storage solution. When you look at the bigger picture, though, custom wood shelving is the best route for your garage. Here’s a breakdown of our metal misery and why we’ve been wooed by wood.
Metal Garage Shelving
Metal shelves are the most common go-to we see in middle Tennessee garages. A single unit can be relatively affordable, relatively easy to assemble out-of-the-box, and seem stronger than wood shelves. Boots-on-the-ground experience, though, has shown us there are way more downsides to consider.
The Cost of Metal Shelves Adds Up
While a single metal shelving unit (let’s say a 6′ x 4′ unit of four shelves) may seem affordable, they hardly ever get the job done on their own. So you end up buying a second unit. And a third. Maybe you then buy some wall-mounted metal shelves, and before you know it, you have over $1,000 invested in metal rails. If they lasted for decades without issue, that might be worth it. But unfortunately, we’ve never seen used metal shelving that hasn’t bent, twisted, or sheared. Which brings us to our second reason…
Metal Shelves Are Surprisingly Weak
To save weight and cut costs, manufacturers of metal shelving try to use as little metal as possible in the actual design. They use enough to hold the advertised weight vertically, but not enough to be resilient against lateral forces. Most people don’t load shelves by holding an item over the shelf and gently lowering it straight down. We shove stuff. And if it gets hung up or won’t quite fit, we shove harder.
This leads to bent, compromised metal brackets. As soon as they are bent, placing load on them will just bent them further until they are totally useless. To compound this, most people overload metal shelving, believing that its stronger than it is.
Once a metal shelving unit has been compromised, you can’t just replace a part. You either stop using the bents shelves or buy an entirely new unit.
Metal Shelves Rust
Most units are not made of stainless steel, which means we see a lot of customers with metal shelves sitting on the floor that have rusted feet from years of water heater leaks, minor flooding, or sometimes just humidity and catching rain when the garage door’s been open. When the foundation of your shelving is crumbling like a cookie, it doesn’t bode well for what’s resting on the shelves.
Metal Shelves Fail In Dangerous Ways
When a shelving unit fails, we think of the items stored on it as being the biggest hazards: what if they fall on someone or a vehicle? But with metal, the brackets and shelving themselves can become a danger.
Unlike wood, which splinters and slowly fails when it reaches its breaking point, metal fatigues to a point of a sudden collapse with little warning. When metal snaps, it leaves sharp ends.
Metal brackets are also heavy, so the shelving itself sometimes adds to its own demise with extra weight.
Metal Shelves Are Not Truly Customizable
Sure, you may have seen adjustable metal brackets on rails you can screw into the wall. But shelves like those sacrifice strength for flexibility. More importantly, once you bring home a shelving unit and realize it doesn’t quite fit into the space you need it to, there’s little you can do.
Wood Garage Shelving
Custom Wood Garage Shelving Is Cost-Effective
With one installation of our custom wood shelving, you can create space for all your storage needs, without having to figure it out one shelving unit at a time. Over time, the economics are clear: custom wood garage shelving is worth it.
Wood Shelves – When Built Properly – Are Surprisingly Strong
We guarantee you’ll never have to replace any of our shelves. We also believe you’ll never find their breaking point with normal storage use. By using robust 2×4 framing and both mounts in the studs and braces/floor supports, we build shelves that can take hundreds of pounds of load easily. It’s more likely a box will be too heavy for you to lift onto one of our shelves than the shelf itself failing.
Wood Shelves Can Be Cut To Fit Any Garage Layout
Above the garage door, in an odd corner, stacked floor-to-ceiling, hung from the ceiling – we’re able to open up storage space anywhere you’d like it. Because we build using a mix of pre-made structures and on-site fabrication, we can customize the design to your whims during the install itself, so you can make on-the-fly decisions as the shelving is taking shape. We’re sure you’ll walk away both surprised and delighted by how they turn out.
Interested in seeing what we can do for your garage? Click here to schedule a free consultation!
