When installing any wall mounted equipment, safety is paramount.

WARNING: Serious injury may occur if wall mounted equipment is not adequately affixed. We therefore only employ professional tradespeople to ensure the safety of others.

While this post may be informative, it is not intended to be an instructional how-to guide on installing a cabinet securely as there can be many different factors present on site that would dictate alternative methods.

The purpose of the post is to show you how we approach the work we do, by using tradespeople such as builders, joiners, electricians and of course data cabling experts which when combined, help us to differentiate ourselves from our rivals.

Firstly, the warning stated above is not there as a caveat to protect ourselves, its there because of the things we have witnessed at first hand.

Over many decades we have seen cabinets that have been ladened with equipment suddenly detach themselves from walls for no apparent reason and come crashing down, only to be restrained by the data cables.

In every example we have seen, it has been a combination of inadequate fasteners used by inexperienced installers.

On the right is an example installation we did for Kleenezes’ distribution centre in Heywood Lancashire. Featuring fibre optics linked to a POE data switch used to powering radio access points in the warehouse.

Data Cabling Installation by Press Telecom in the northwest, Lancashire for Kleeneze OL10 2TT

Step 1 – Survey the installation.

When we survey any job, we make test holes to identify the material behind the plastered walls. For example, a red or yellow dust sample is likely to be brick, and a grey/black dust sample is usually concrete block.

For these types of walls, we use heavy duty extension bolts which when tightened, physically expand inside the hole making for the most secure of fixing possible.

Step 2 – preparing the wall for the heavy duty extension bolts.

The fixing positions have been marked and pre-drilled using a smaller pilot drill to maintain accuracy. Note the use of a vacuum to collect any dust that may be harmful.

Step 3 – Pre-tensioning the bolts

The picture on the left is showing the use of a nut and washer to pre-tensioned the bolt so that it expands in the wall.

The reason we do this is to ensure the bolts do not spin freely when trying to secure the cabinet to the wall in the next step.

Step 4 – Securing the cabinet to the wall.

Due to the varying grades of metal used in the manufacturing process of wall cabinets, it is best practice to use sizeable thick steel washers to create a secure fixing as seen in the photograph to the right.

We have seen thin gauge steel cabinets buckle under loading around the anchorage positions and become detached as the deformation causes the cabinet to slip over the nut and come crashing down.