Shelves on Plasterboard walls

D

Darth Vader

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I am looking to get alot of shelves in my house. I was originally going to go with floating shelves but its seems they will hold alot less weight then shelves with brackets and they would have to be alot thicker then I want.
The walls are all plasterboard and I am wondering if this is going to cause me problems in securing the shelves?
 
Shouldn't be a problem at all.

If you cal locate the studs, then screw the brackets into those. If not, just use the right fixings such as [broken link removed] or [broken link removed].
 
With plasterboard, you need to secure the brackets to the wall in the places where there is a batten behind the palsterboard and not just plasterboard with a gao behind it.

If you are planning to put books on the shelves, it is worth making sure that they are strong and secure.

If it makes sense in the space, a built in set of book shelves can look great and is very strong, where there is a backing and shelves all built to fit the space, instead of just shelves fitted to the wall.

There is a limit to how long a shelf can be without a bracket in the middle, especially if it is expected to take a heavy load like books.

Who is going to put these shelves up ?
A good carpenter should be able to advise you on the best option for your rooms.
 
I really wanted to go with floating shelves for the look but the span of the walls in some of the rooms is too long and the shelves in the other rooms will be book shelves so I think the weight would be too much for floating shelves. I was also told I would need to be looking at 3 inches in thickness to have a chance of then holding any weight and thats just not going to look right.

I have had a number of carpenters looking at the job, my concern is that they put up the shelves and they end up sagging or coming away from the walls, and i'm left with them telling me that they just did what I asked them to do!
 
Floating shelves will never be able to take much weight, leverage forces are just too great.

Plasterboard with fixings like the ones I linked to above, can actually hold considerable weight (even without screwing into the battens), but you need to have a vertical component fixed tightly to the wall to spread the weight out over 6 or more inches.
 
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