Ledger to Support 200#?

[Frank Hagan]

I'm re-building my recessed, built in entertainment center ... to make a long story short, our TV followed our refrigerator to Paradise, and our Christmas presents this year were then determined.

I'm repurposing the wood from the old entertainment center, with some new 3/4 ply. The wood will be painted. The top shelf is 25 3/4" x 82", and will span the 82" width of the recess without a center support. To do this, I "over-engineered" the shelf by laminating two 1" steel square tubes between two sheets of 3/4" ply, with 1" dividers every 16" to form a kind of steel-wood torsion box assembly. It is heavy, probably 100 pounds or so.

Will 1" hardwood ledgers, along the two side walls and all the way along the back, be enough to support the shelf? I think it will, but I want a sanity check before I put my 55" flat panel TV under it.

[Jamie Buxton]

The question is how the ledgers are fastened to the wall. If you put light screws into drywall, the thing will fall down. If you put lag screws into every stud, it'll stay up. If you put substantial wood screws into every stud, you're probably okay too.

[Frank Hagan]

Thanks, Jamie. I'm planning on 1/4 x 3" lag screws into studs, three on each end and then five or six along the back, spaced at about 16" (to catch each stud).

[James Ogle]

Frank, you might want to look into Structural Screws. GRK Fasteners makes the RSS. You get the weight holding and structural strength of lags but in a much smaller package. There is another manufacturer but I can't remember them for the life of me.