Folks:
In one of my offices I have two Steelcase 42″ lateral filing cabinets, purchased back in the 1990s, supporting a 120-gallon aquarium (rule of thumb is that an acrylic aquarium weighs 10 lbs. per gallon, including the tank and gravel):
I’m setting up a new office and thought it would be nice to replicate the set-up. I contacted Red Thread, the Steelcase retailer in Massachusetts, and the saleswoman, Jessica Andrews, responded with “… that will not work. That is far too heavy for these lateral files, we don’t recommend it.” I replied with the photo above. She answered with “The particular file you have under that tank currently, is a work horse. Unfortunately, Steelcase no longer has that series. Their files have come a long way over the years, they are more environmentally friendly…less metal. Therefore, we cannot say that these files will support that tank.”
So I asked how much the new cabinets weighed. The answer was over 300 lbs. each. Given that a 96 lb. wooden cabinet
Do any readers work in an office with a 42″-wide Steelcase lateral file (2- or 3-drawers high) of recent vintage? Have a trio of 200-lb. guys available and willing to sit on top for a test? If so, please let me know what you find! Alternatively, if you have some of these newer, supposedly wimpier cabinets from Steelcase and something heavy on top, please let me know how it has worked out.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Sorry, I have a Steelcase but it is one of the those old don’t makem like they use to ones that weighs a ton.
Maybe you could locate a couple of used heavyweight ones? There are dealers in used office equipment and it’s even possible to get them refinished.
The other alternative is to build a sort of a wooden shell that would go around your steelcases and support some/ all of the weight. The back edge could be supported by a 2 x4 screwed to the wall studs and the sides and top could be 3/4″ plywood painted steelcase beige. Unless you looked closely, you wouldn’t even notice that they were there.
I just looked at a Teknon brand lateral file cabinet here at the office, I guess about 42″ wide (I don’t have a measuring tape on hand, but they look to be a little less than four feet wide) with about 250 pounds of routers and switches on top. The drawers seem to work fine.
I’ll email you a photo soon, for reference.
That’s definitely a question for Steelcase direct, not a distributor. I’m not surprised they punted on any question that can’t be answered from their data sheets.
But you’re only talking about 1200 lbs of static load, almost perfectly evenly distributed over six vertical support sheet members, plus four corner posts in the front. They should be very very rigid.
I’d check the new mfg products out at the showroom, and only worry iff I could detect any significant wobble (1/4″?) when pushing down on the middle-top and rocking side to side.
I am a big fan of Steelcase, and I’d be terribly disappointed to learn that their new stuff couldn’t support your application. Please let us know what you learn!
Thanks, Javier. I hadn’t heard of Teknion until now. From poking around their Web site it looks as though they have two different options for the “case grade”. I wonder if that relates to the strength or the finish. Also they have a 20″ depth option that Steelcase lacks (Steelcase has 18″ and 24″ deep; the 24″ is a little too much for the space but the 18″ results in some waste and loss of storage).
How’s the quality on Teknion compared to Steelcase?
Phil,
Go paperless, then you can put the fish tank on the floor and not worry.
I think you were previously looking at some large screen TVs/monitors to show your photos so . . . go paperless and tankless and set one up to showing a movie of a fish tank on top of some filing cabinets.
philg: I just took a stroll around the office, and it seems all of the filing cabinets and shelves are of that brand, so I can’t compare it against Steelcase.
I’m asking the Steelcase cabinets to handle 1/11th of the load per lb. of stand.
I am not sure I understand the math here, sorry. A 120-gallon tank would weigh about 1,200 pounds (water weighs 8 pounds per gallon.) Where is the 1/11th of the load per pound come from?
Zapiens: The arithmetic assumes that a 220-gallon tank weighs 220/120 as much as a 120-gallon tank. Then it compares a 96 lb. wooden stand to a 600 lb. steel one. The result is that the steel has to support about 1/11th as much load, per lb., as the wood.
You already have proof of concept.
Look for a used set of cabinets that are from the same series that are built better than whatever Steelcase makes now. Have them re-sprayed to the color you need. Used premium office furniture is one of the biggest unsung bargains you can get.
Steelcase (U.S.) is as good or better than Teknion (Canada), but they might have something you need. Herman Miller, Knoll, Haworth and Allsteel are alternatives to Steelcase.
It is a disappointment to hear that Steelcase has a down-spec product. I ahve always thought their products were top-of- the line quality-wise.
The result is that the steel has to support about 1/11th as much load, per lb., as the wood.
I think on a per-lb. basis, wood is stronger than steel. But it has a lot to do how the structure is distributed. The problem in a filing cabinet is that the top is not designed to carry a lot of weight. The other problem is that when wood deforms it tends to spring back but sheet metal will permanently dent.
I suspect that a filing cabinet has maximum strength at the perimeter so that if you could distribute the load out to the edges (e.g. lay 2×4’s around the rim and put the tank on top of the 2x4s) it would be less likely to dent or collapse the top.
Izzie: the idea of using 2x4s around the rim means that now you’ve got the acrylic base of the aquarium bending under the load instead of being fully supported by something flat, e.g., a steel top. People do just a perimeter support with glass tanks but not with acrylic, I think.
Then put a sheet of plywood on top of the 2×4.
Call Lista.
They do the industrial tool cabinets for, well, anyone who cares to have the best tool cabinets in industrial workspaces possible. Most everything they do is build-to-order and they can configure a file cabinet easily.
My suggestion is to fill the fish tank with helium and have it float above the file cabinet.