Walls & weights

[Piglet]

Yes, a very random question:

How much weight can an average wall take? For my Product Design coursework I'm thinking of buiding a wall storage unit but I need to know what the maximum weight it can be. How do I find out? Should I phone the councel or something and ask them

Cheers

 

[daftscotslass]

I'm no architect but I'm sure it would depend if the wall was load-bearing (would take more weight) or just a partition wall (usually hollow and can't hold much).

 

[Pinny Gigs]

It also depends on how many points of attatchment there are between the shelves and the wall. More connections mean the load is distributed over the wall surface. If the weight is distributed over more points there will be less chance of any singular point failing as the point load will be less. As for where you could find the loading limit of your wall I'm not sure. It depends on wall width, thickness, slenderness, material. Would love to help but so far my course has only covered steel and concrete design codes! And I've been off sick today so my brain ain't working!