LESLIE: Steve in Florida is getting organized and hanging some cabinetry. How can we help you with your project?
STEVE: Hi, my house was built in 1991 and I have, I guess, metal studs.
TOM: OK.
STEVE: And my question is what kind of screws can I use to keep those cabinets up? It just seems like any kind of screw I put in the metal stud slips right out without an anchor.
TOM: Well, typically, steel studs you use the steel case hardened screws; the same kind of screw that you use for drywall. You see those in the home centers. And the trick here is going to be to make sure that you’re real accurate with installing those so that you hit the surface of the stud and not the edge of the stud.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm, because there’s nothing behind the edgers, right?
TOM: Yeah, you’ve got to really hit it square and so you’re going to need to use a stud finder and make sure you locate the edges and then sort of divide that in half to find the exact middle. You’ve just got to be real careful. If it’s a wood stuff, you know you can angle the screw one way or the other. With a metal stud you pretty much have to be dead on.
STEVE: And they’re called case hardened screws?
TOM: Yeah, they’re case hardened screws. If you go to any home center or hardware store, those metal screws were originally designed to attach drywall and other building materials to metal studs and then the industry started using those to attach drywall to wood studs; finding that they were just so darned handy to handle. And those will work fine for attaching cabinets as well.
STEVE: Fantastic. I thank you. Any special length I should use for something like that?
TOM: Yeah, make sure it’s long enough to hit the stud. (chuckles)
STEVE: (chuckling) OK, good enough. Thank you very much for your help.
TOM: You’re welcome, Steve. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Leave a Reply