Wall Cleat height?

[glenn bradley]

Those of you who opted for cleats along the length of a wall to allow easy rearrangement of cabinets and racks; what heights did you decide on? It seems like 30-odd inches for lower cabinets, about 6 feet for upper cabinets and a higher cleat for pegboard panels and the like would work but I wanted to get some input of what others did or would have done differently.

[Greg Crawford]

Glenn,

I only have one cabinet on cleats so far, for my drilling accessories. It's 33" tall, with the top cleat about 77" above the floor. That's a good height for me to still be able to reach the things on the top. Of course, I still haven't learned to quit putting the heaviest items on top, where they reach the highest velocity before making contact with my body

[Bob Vallaster]

Glenn,
I installed 30" upper cabinets (used takeouts) in my garage. They're installed as high as possible on 8' walls to preserve vertical clearance beneath them for work space above benches. 'As high as possible' works out to cabinets about 1" from the ceiling after going up-n-over the cleats. The cleats are attached as follows: near-flush on the top/back of the cabinet; the receiving piece is mounted on the wall with its upper edge ~1/4" lower than the bottom edge of the cabinet piece.
Position for the wall cleat was determined by using a piece of cleat off-cut plus 1" scrap to space the cleat down from the ceiling. (Mark each end of the wall or cabinets' span, and snap a chalk line.) In this fashion, the cabinet cleat's 3/4" ramp height clears its mate by 1/4" before settling into lock.
It's tight going over the top, but there is no wasted volume above the cabinet. The step-up stool is my friend. I reserve the highest shelves for light-weight and infrequently-used items.
Did much the same for a kid's house. The garage had ~9' ceiling and I made 40" cabinets. Lotsa room underneath for workbench, roll-in cabinets, bicycles, etc.
Good luck with it.

Bob Vallaster

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello Glenn,
The beauty of cleats is that there is no set height for them.
The sky - or floor is the limit.

[Jim Becker]

Check the Idea Shop #5 stuff from WOOD Magazine at woodonline.com. If I recall correctly, they have a three cleat arrangement.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Jim,
I tried to bring up #5 and it appears to be offline.

Glenn,
I should have expounded a bit.
What I did was take pieces of 3/4" plywood 4' long and ripped to 3 inches wide and glued/stapled a piece of 1/2" plywood 4' long and two inches wide to the back.
I've mounted these cleats on the wall - lagged into the studs - about 1 foot apart in height.
For the mating cleats, I took a piece of 3/4" plywood 2 inches wide and glued/stapled a piece of 1/2" plywood 3 inches wide to the back. These I've screwed or glued/stapled or lagged onto the back of whatever I want to hang on the wall.

Since they have no real fixed height and since two or more can be attached to the back of something - as far apart as the wall cleats are high - they can support an incredible amount of weight.