I frequently have to hang cabinets in refurbed rentals that I can only find one stud to achor to. I use moly-bolts to hold the rest. I really don’t like using moly-bolts. Some of these sheetrock walls are 30+ years old and I have nightmares of someone’s dishes crashing to the floor in the middle of the night bring half the sheetrock wall with them. I’ve discussed my concerns with the owner and suggested that I could cut out the sheet rock and block between the studs with some 3/4″ ply but he feels the cost is unwarrented. Any ideas would be welcomed. thanks keedman
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Hey Keedman,
I’m sure more experienced guys will show up with some better advice but I had a very similar situation recently where I had to mount some cabinets on a wall that had questionable anchoring support. I was not comfortable using any types of mollies for the exact fears you mentioned. Being a rental, who knows what someone, someday will store in there.
For the extra half hour of work, I removed a 10” strip of the drywall down the full wall length of cabinets exposing the studs behind. On each stud I then “let in” a ¾” pocket to insert a plywood backing down the cabinet length. I then doubled a second layer of ¾” ply on top of that to be flush with wall surface. This gave me almost and 1 ½” of solid backing everywhere down the down the length of the cabinet run to securely mount the cabinets to. The cabinets covered the plywood backing.
A second idea would be to use interlocking cleat system. I’ve used them in mounting heavy items on walls, like mirrors, but I’ve also seen them available for cabinets. One cleat mounts to the wall the other to the recess in the back of the cabinet and then you “hook” the two together to mount. I believe they are sometimes referred to as French cleats.
thanks for the info.......keedman
If your really leary of the sheetrock, these may not be what you want.
http://www.toggler.com/products_hwh.html
I use these to hang 150 lb wall hutchs over desks, very solid and easy. The hutchs get loaded up with binders and other heavy objects, never had a failure.
piffen screws. 2+3=7
If you have a row of cabinets, you could hang them on cleats.
Rip a 1x with a 45% angle. Mount horizontally on wall with "point" out and facing up.
Rip mating boards (with point facing in and down), and attach to cabinets.
Hang them up. 1 or 2 screws through cleat just to hold them still.
You can also buy pre-made steel cleats at Rockler:
http://tinyurl.com/bkm82