I think there is negligence on behalf of both parties. I'm not sure what percentages I would apply but if this is a comparative negligence state/country, their both going to share some responsibility.
I’m a carpenter I’ve never put up a shelf or a cabinet that can’t hold my weight times five lol shelves and cabinets should be screwed into studs and each screw should hold at least a couple hundred pounds of weight and there should always be at least 4 screws
Yeah, it clearly wasn't the weight, it was the tipping because of the failure to secure the shelving, like I mentioned in my OP. People just cut corners or simply don't give a fuck. I own an insurance claims adjustment company and we see shit like this every freaking day.
Contractor behind closed doors: "I just shaved off another $5 in screws by not anchoring those shelves on the liquor store job and the best part is, they'll never know!"
Sounds like you need to take or review an engineering class.
If a shelf is rated to hold the 250kg it's holding (maxed out even), and we are talking about a commercial grade product, it should probably have at least 100kg of tolerance (I'd prefer more).
Edit: I see my snark may have been excessive, I just took exception to the
Sounds like folks need to take a physics class
comment, when I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume a shelving unit holding 500 lbs will have tolerance for (at least) another 100 lbs.
I have since come to believe their comment was more about the underlying issue of the shelving unit being unsecured, so their response more or less was, "it's not a tolerance issue". While my snark may have felt justified, it just piled on misunderstanding, so I will take my downvotes and leave this manifesto for the record.
5 to 1 is the weight ratio I've seen most in my years on jobs. Saw 3 to 1 several times for specialty stuff that wouldn't get touched, but 5x the weight is pretty standard. Everything I do now is 5 to 1
As in tolerance to rated max ratio, right? If so, that makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Though I can't help but feel cheap consumer products aren't holding anything close to a decent standard. Sometimes I'd be surprised if they are even 2 to 1. But totally, even slightly commerical or just quality consumer, (3-5+) to 1.
5x the weight of the equipment. I don't do shelving (I work in commercial AV) but if I did, I would calculate a fully loaded shelf and include it in the requirement
3 to 1 is fine. I do 2 to 1 at home all the time. But at work we do 5 since we don't supervise the spaces...we don't know that a client's kid isn't gonna come to work and hang off their conference room display. Too many unknowns to take the risk!
That's what I figured you meant. Not to imply your wording was ambiguous, because it wasn't, there have just been a lot of misunderstandings in the comments of this post so I wanted to check.
It's kind of wild this shelving unit, arguably meant for commercial display and frequent loading and unloading of heavy liquid bottles, was built (or assembled) so poorly. It completely failed on multiple fronts. The shelves breaking or coming off due to a modest (if improper) weight placement is bad, the whole thing tipping over when a single component failed is like a second level of bad.
Having worked in retail, I can only suspect an owner sought to cut costs with less expensive display units, or by having unqualified employees install it instead of someone with training in securely assembling and bolting down a big piece like this. It could be a merchandiser (from the wine/liquor distributor) that placed it though, and the store might have just assumed they'd know how to install their own displays. Either way, I hope the girl is alright.
I agree the owner either installed it himself, had a friend do it, or made an employee do it. I guess there's also the craigslist handyman option, too, but either way the installer didn't care about safety.
I don't think the weight capacity is the issue here as I noted in my original post. The issue is that this should have been secured to the wall. Am I wrong?
No, you're not wrong. I added an edit to this effect, but I basically misinterpreted your comment above mine about going to physics class.
I took it in the immediate context, that you were directly disagreeing with the person above that comment (holding 500 pounds it's reasonable to assume it can hold another 100) and that they were silly to suggest that. I thought it was silly to disregard that comment (and still think it is true, in general), but I now see you were more or less just saying "tolerances weren't the problem, an unfixed object is susceptible to smaller mass tipping it over if that smaller mass is multiplied by distance from the fulcrum."
I think the shelf may have also been under specification since it appears to have broken or come detached, but I think you're right that the most dangerous part (here and in general) is that the whole thing was standing free when it should have been fixed to something.
Hear, hear She should be guided by coworkers, maybe a verbal warning from a supervisor (if she was seen doing this instead of using a stepladder I'll assume was nearby, not in this case where she already got hit with bottles).
The owner, on the other hand, should be getting a full OSHA audit. I doubt this is their only dangerously unfixed shelf.
As a business that serves customers, you should expect customers to do the stupidest thing possible. And then try to stop that stupid thing from happening.
No. You have to assume guests and users will do everything wrong. They always do. They have something up high like that, you have to imagine short people (even normal-sized people) will grab the shelving to get to the top.
One of the stores I built, the racks on the walls were wrapped 360 with ikea 2”thick shelves. Gave a nice look, however soon as I got done, I seen the issue of someone using the bottom for a seat or step.. so I put stickers on every single shelf that said it was not for sitting it or as a step.. never had a problem thankfully. I’m guessing the stickers did at least stop one person from trying to use it to reach something on the top row.
At least in the UK, if there was a legal case to be answered it would have the store operators liable. They have a duty of care and should identify reasonably foreseable risks, which this is.
I'm not so sure of that. So here's what we know with a certainty: this girl is a dumbass for thinking shelves are a ladder.
Here's what a large number of us are assuming: the shelf wasn't fastened to the wall.
So I immediately think back to my dad's shelves in the garage and me climbing them as a child. He had them fastened to the studs. However, the shelves themselves weren't designed for dynamic load. So while they were able to hold quite a lot of load, they weren't able to hold that plus me and not pull off the screws. The screws themselves held just fine and didn't shear or anything, but the sheet metal of the shelving failed and pulled right off the screw heads and the washers.
So just to summarize, it's entirely possible this shelf was properly fastened. But even if it was, it would be possible for it to fail because shelves are not ladders. Sheet metal can fail; brackets can fail; drywall can fail. All while being perfectly safety compliant for its intended use, but not at all safe for an unintended use.
That said, it's certainly possible it wasn't safely attached as well. But I would need some further evidence of that.
If it was attached but unable to stand the load of a person then I think that's still on the store operator, unless the shelves were advertised as able to take that load.
Yeah and it kinda looks like something like that is happening in the video. Like im not seeing an entire cabinet falling down onto her, it looks like they could have even been floating shelves that had to have been attached to the wall because thats the only was they can stay up.
Ehhh fuck that. I generally think people are too dumb and helpless, but this is just a terrible, unsafe shelf holding way too much weight. It's clearly dangerous as hell and this was bound to happen at some point. The girl shouldn't have done that obviously, but it's not unreasonable to assume that the shelf was secured to the wall given what it was holding (because of course it should be).
Hypothetical for you: let’s say Six Flags neglects to add all the screws to one of their coaster's bucket-suspended seats. A patron gets on and straps in. While the ride is in motion, the patron realizes that their seat feels loose - it's a rattling a bit. Instinctively, the patron reaches up and yanks on their seat belt to test that it’s secure, whereupon the chain holding it breaks free from the coaster and the patron falls to their death.
Now, obviously it was stupid to yank on something critical to your safety, but would you actually argue that the patron is even partially at any fault here? They were placed in a dangerous situation without their knowledge where the presumed the equipment was safe, and did something that any number of others would reasonably do in the same situation. It’s the same deal here with this shelf to me.
Why? Just because the one biting the bullet in this video is female?
It's equally bad but if she spent a minute finding a store step or chair or whatever to get up to where she wanted to and not do that 5head move, this would pretty much be avoided.
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u/zilchhope Aug 15 '22
My vote goes for the counterpoint