In case anyone else on this list is using steel shelving with particle board shelves that's been in use for over ten years, and hasn't given the shelving a careful looking over, it may be a good idea to do so. When looking for shelving to stack lots of equipment on in the early 1990's, I purchased some shelving from Sears Roebuck & Co. that was rated at least one ton per shelf. The steel framing is very heavy, but at the time, I was a little wary of the pressed particleboard shelves themselves, but was told that they would hold the rated weight. For the past ten years, I've been quite pleased with the shelving, until now. While there's nothing extremely heavy on the shelves - e.g., one shelf contains a Canon laser printer (the square one with a CX engine), about 40 full-height 5-1/4" hard drives, an 8" floppy drive and a few other things, I noticed that some of the items on some of the shelves appear to be leaning slightly. It turns out that the boards are sagging a bit towards the center, so it's just a matter of time before things begin to go crash. Not sure how soon that might happen, but this sagging has occurred fairly quickly, or so it seems. No other space to store some of these things, so, I'm just hoping for the best until I can make other arrangements, but 3/4" oak planks, which I'd prefer to use for adding some support, have become quite expensive. Replacing the particleboard would be a major pain, since the entire shelving assembly would have to be disassembled. So... in case anyone hasn't checked their shelves carefully lately... Note: part of this is most likely as much my fault as the manufacturers', since there is some occasional dampness near the shelves, but, for years, there was no apparent problem, and no obvious rust, mildew, etc. on any of the equipment. Not much I can do about the dampness, except hope that repainting a basement stone wall with some new waterproofing paint will help things... thanks to BG&E, Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., for disturbing the wall, thus causing increased water leakage during heavy rains, when they pounded heavily on the wall while lining gas pipes in the area and installing a new meter a few years ago... I should have tried the aforementioned repainting a few years ago as well. Procrastination: not just a skill, a way of life! Procrastinators Anonymous web site: http://www.rddavis.org/rdd/procrastinators.html -- Copyright (C) 2004 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved | My VAX | an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & www.rddavis.org | runs VMS & | her other creatures, using dogma to justify such 410-744-4900 | doesn't crash!| beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.