[dmethvin]

Before you trust a few thousand dollars of equipment to this desk...

The brackets there are mounted backwards; the long end should go against the wall. When they rate the brackets to hold 1000 pounds, it's based on a load at the center of the short side. But really the risk comes from the mounting. If you mount a 30-inch-deep hunk of desk on it there is a much higher stress on the mounting points since the long desk acts as a very effective lever. If you lean against the edge of the desk it may well pull the bracket out of the wall--especially if you use typical screws rather than lag bolts to mount it to the wall.

If you are mounting something like this in a corner, as being done here, the whole setup could be strengthened by mounting a ledger board against the right-hand wall to support the entire depth of the desk. Really you should have a support on the front-left corner as well, which can be done either with a dowel or furniture leg (you can get either at a hardware store).

[Judson]

I thought this at first, but if you look at a bracket like the one in the article on Amazon[1], it seems that they are mounted correctly, since amazon describes its depth as 19.5", and a height of 13".

Those brackets are different than what I would call standard shelving brackets[2], which should be mounted with the long side against the wall.

[1]:http://www.amazon.com/Black-Steel-Shelf-Bracket-19-1/dp/B001...

[2]:http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/BATTALION-Utility-Shelf-Bra...

[dmethvin]

I've never seen a bracket meant to be intentionally mounted long-side-out, but I agree they seem to be advocating it there. You could do it if the loads were light, of course, but with a deep shelf and/or heavy loads it creates a lot of pull-out stress on the screws near the 90-degree bend.

[devmach]

Quick tip : After drilling a wall you can clean the dust with vacuum cleaner and fill the hole ( not fully ) with quick drying plaster/cement and stick wall plug[1] in it. With this way you can be able to mount your stuff on almost every wall and the mounting will be stronger. It is useful if you live in a old apartment ( like most of the appartments in Germany... )

[1] : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_plug

[dmethvin]

Not for mounting a desk! For things like pictures where the stress is mostly shear (downward force), you can use something as simple as an angled nail and hang five or ten pounds of picture frame on it. Wall plugs, especially the ones that expand behind the wall, do provide better resistance to pulling force. But these desk brackets will have a LOT of pull applied to them because of the leverage of the desk surface.

Some plaster against the ribs of that plug are not enough; it will likely yank out of the wall and may take a chunk of wall with it. In older plaster-and-lath construction, you'll most likely crack/damage the plaster from the flexing caused by the plug pulling against the lath in the wall.

As the original article says, you'll want to hit a stud, and IMO even that (alone) is not enough for this kind of application.

[Luc]

If the old apartments in Germany are anything like those in Belgium, the inside walls are probably plastered brick (or worse - concrete). Wooden houses are a rarity here. Living in old buildings I've never encountered one of these walls built around a wooden frame.

[bh42222]

America vs Europe.

In America most houses are wood, and I don't mean log houses.

And there is no way wall plugs would work in that kind of American wall.

[vetler]

In Norway and Sweden we also have mostly wooden houses. I would imagine it's the same in Finland as well. Probably because we have lots and lots of trees here, compared to continental Europe.

[devmach]

Yes, they are mostly plastered brick.

By the way : concrete isn't bad as you think. There are different type of concrete.But... While it's strong and resistant to fire, if you live in somewhere where the earth quakes are common, concrete is a bad choice. Also metal frames in the concrete is problematic, they have to be resistant to the water (galvanized etc.) or in time they will rust and tear apart the concrete.

[VBprogrammer]

An idea that just occurred to me while reading this is that shelving racking, such as you see in most shops, would be ideal for this situation. I have some shelves just behind my desk mounted on this type of racking which have steel bars about 3/8" wide and are about 6ft tall screwed into the wall every foot or so. I believe the length of these would counter quite a lot of the bending stress (although thats not really my field) and as a fringe benefit they have mountings which the shelves hook into every 1 1/2" or so, this could even allow the desk to be lowered to a normal seating position with a little work. Also, I think that any failure of this type of racking would be fairly gradual.

Similar to what is shown here http://www.richardsonsuk.co.uk/product.aspx?p=46 (no affiliation, just the first similar looking thing I came across on google).

[tiddchristopher]

I've been using precisely that solution for several months. It's perfect, and I have absolutely no worries about weight, because there are several screws along the length of each bar. My laptop and monitor go on one rack, and my keyboard and mouse are on another, about a foot beneath the first.

[VBprogrammer]

Good to hear it is working out for you, if I had any inclination towards having a standing desk at home I'd certainly consider doing it that way.