kaiw69•13h ago

I finally looked up how much weight a 2x4 can really hold

I was building some garage shelves for a friend in Portland and just guessed at the spacing for the uprights. Looked it up in an old code book last night and saw a standard 8-foot 2x4 on edge can hold over 400 pounds before it starts to bend... which is way more than I thought. How often do you guys actually check the load tables for simple stuff like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

miabennett13h ago

My old deck plans were way overbuilt then.

nora1847h ago

Yeah, that's such a common thing. I see it all the time with people building stuff or even just planning a simple project. We get it in our heads that we need the absolute strongest, most perfect thing, so we add way more than we actually need. Then you finish and realize half the materials (and half the work) were just extra. It's like a weird mix of overthinking and being scared it won't hold up.