Bench has a known max weight. What percentage of that weight can it hold forever?

Factual Questions
1

In a nutshell: Bench is listed as supporting up to 350 pounds. I want to store 100 pounds of evenly distributed water jugs across the length of it, for years at a time or potentially a decade or more. Will the bench eventually buckle under the neverending 100 pound load? It’s a cheapo particle board on steel frame deal. Here’s an Amazon link to the actual benches: (not sure yet what I’ll do with the table)

WLIVE Dining Table with 2 Benches

Those benches are the perfect size to store six across of these 2.5 gallon water jugs both on top and under the seat. (12 jugs with one bench!) I’m putting between 2 gallons and 8 liters in each jug, so figure 48 liters = 106ish pounds.

Assuming no emergencies happen, and those 6 jugs (106 pounds) sit on top of one of those benches for years and years or maybe a decade or longer, will the bench eventually collapse?

2

I would expect it to last a long time as long as it stays dry. Particle board isn’t that strong, but if it stays dry it should hold that weight without problem. It’s really moving weight that causes things to break. Water just sitting there for a long time shouldn’t make much difference.

3

If it’s rated to hold 350 lbs you can pretty sure that it would take at least twice that much to take it to failure, perhaps even more. The weakest link is the particle board itself, if it gets wet or is exposed to too much humidity it may start to expand and lose cohesion. Even with that I could see it lasting at least 10 years given that the frame is steel or aluminum as long as they did a halfway decent job of welding the frame.

But I don’t see that table taking much of a side load. If someone bumped up against it while fully loaded the legs may buckle.

4

If the legs are not fixed to the ground it will eventually sag in the middle and eventually fail.

5

I believe that spec is intended to be interpreted as for normal use, that is, people sitting on it for limited periods of time.

My experience with particle board is that it bows, even if the load is not particularly heavy. I have had closet shelves and kitchen cabinet shelves bow under normal load, after many years. However, bowing is not the same as collapsing.

The description says “steel frame” which probably mitigates any bowing to a great degree (my shelves had no framing). If the only particle board component is that top surface then you should be good for your lifetime. May you live a good long life.

6

Home Depot or Lowes have inexpensive all-steel shelving that seems much better suited to your purpose.

7

It’ll be in the garage, so no rain or water but who knows how badly those water jugs will sweat in the summer or condensate in the winter. The plastic is fairly thick but still, something to keep an eye on.

There are over a dozen different names-you-never-heard “brands” of those 3-piece dining sets on Amazon, all essentially the same measurements but just different colors. I’m assuming they all come from the same factory or two in China. (There are two predominate “sizes” among the dozen or so brands. The one I chose is the larger size, 43" across.)

Each different brand has its own set of customer comments and ratings. For one of the other brands, someone commented that a single 300 pound person buckled one of the benches all by themself when they adjusted a certain way. At least several reviews mention sitting two grown adults side by side on a single bench and it being fine. (I’m assuming there were on the small side, maybe 300 total between them. But still.)

I agree that particle board is shit; any confidence (hope?) I have is fully invested in the steel frame.

Good point about the shearing forces (rack?) being the real danger. Will keep that in mind.

8

Are you buying this dining set just to use the benches as a shelf for the water?

9

I’m strongly motivated to keep it is narrow as possible, preferably under 11" wide but up to a foot is (just barely) acceptable. All the heavy duty steel shelving I could find was at least 18" wide, and most of it was 24".

In fact, I started out looking for shelves but the closest thing I could find was the Dewalt Storage Shelf at 4’ tall and 18" wide.

Whatever shelves I get (I already ordered the dining set from the OP) are going in between a car and a wall where I have to walk between them to get in and out of the car. Not sure how much room there is, but putting something 18" out from the wall was almost too much when the thing sticking out that far was only 1 foot tall. At 4 feet tall 18" might block passage entirely, or at least make it difficult.

With shelving all too wide to fit, I started looking for benches, thinking I would use the floor as the lower shelf. (Each row of 6 jugs will be wrapped in a tarp like a burrito.) That’s what led me to those prefab 3-piece dining sets for studio apartments. Those suckers are only 11.8 inches deep and 18.5" tall. (The jugs as lined up are 9.5" deep and 14.5" tall; 6.75" wide.) It’s approaching optimal space efficiency for maximum storage in the space I have to work with.

As long as sagging is drawn out before collapse (as opposed to a sudden catastrophic failure out of the blue), I’m fine spending another $200 five years from now to replace the benches. I got a quote from my local woodworking guy for a custom solution to fit my space but that was $800. And even if it were $200, an all-wood solution would be way bigger and bulkier than a steel frame particle board deal.

As long as we’re all agreed that it will be noticeably saggy for weeks (or months) before it collapses, my concerns are alleviated.

10

Yep. Free table!

Pretty much every option I looked at was in the $150 range, and so was this, so it seemed reasonable.

11

That seems a little weird to me but whatever. How about a flat weight bench? They’re usually made of steel with a cushioned vinyl seat. And they have much higher weight capacity.

12

Another option; look at locker room benches.

13

I like both of those ideas, and if the dining room benches seem rickety I’ll send it back and look at both of them. But I mean, the dining room benches are for sure 100% designed to be sat on by at least one adult human being. So it has some weight support to it.

Honestly, though, in terms of weird off-label uses, is storing water on and under a weight bench or locker room bench any less weird than using dining room benches? Or is it just the “free” table that seems weird? (I do actually have a low priority use for the table, but it’ll only be “good enough” for that purpose, not great.)

14

I would just get concrete blocks and a couple of pieces of 2x6 (or 2x8 depending on actual dimensions of the jugs). Use three pillars to hold up the lumber so there is only a short span that could possibly sag, but is unlikely to with that construction. If you have humid conditions use pressure treated lumber and paint the concrete blocks and they will be fine for the next 30 years.

15

They really shouldn’t. Sure, the first time you fill them up with cold water and bring them outside in the humidity, they will, but that’s it. Once their temperature swings with the ambient temp, they’re not going to condensate any more than anything else in the garage. Granted, they water will take longer to get to a new air temperature than, say, a plastic shelf, but the only way they should condensate is if your garage has a very sudden temperature change from cold to hot and humid. Like, if it’s air conditioned and you open the door when it’s 80 degrees and raining.

Look at it like this. They’re not going to condensate any more than any bottles containing a liquid you already have in there.

16

Good points, Joey, about jugs sweating only because of being different than the ambient temperature. So that’s reassuring. It has been humid recently, so maybe I’ll put the jugs in the garage a couple days before the benches arrive so they’re already adjusted.

My other worry is freezing, but only putting 2 gallons (8 liters) in each 2.5 gallon jug is hopefully enough extra space to allow for freezing expansion. Doesn’t get that cold often but it can. Negative reviews of the jug unanimously complained that the caps leak, which I don’t care about because I’m storing them upright. But that tells me air can get in and out of the cap, even if only slowly. Meaning if it does get cold enough long enough to freeze solid, the half gallon of empty space and imperfect cap seal should let them freeze and thaw without issue.

Freezing isn’t even the reason I’m leaving that extra space. Flushing one toilet once takes 4 gallons of water, and I’m trying to minimize the weight. 2 gallons in each hand is perfect. I considered 5 gallon jugs (one per flush) but lifting all four gallons 3 or 4 feet off the floor to fill the tank is more work than I need.

Up until our 5-day power outage outage earlier this month – and thus no water – I’d been using 16 Arizona Ice Tea jugs, 1 gallon each, because the plastic is so thick. Except one of them had exploded (utterly shredded) from freezing. 16 tea jugs is only lousy 4 flushes worth of emergency water, and those boxes of 16 tea jugs stuck out 18" from the wall. Only a foot tall so not a hardship to walk past but still annoying.

I’m replacing those 16 tea jugs with 20 2-gallon jugs, 18 of which will go in the garage. (2 in one of the bathrooms.) Those two benches fit all 18: 6 on top of one bench, 6 each underneath both benches. (Then beverages on top of the other bench: Iced Tea, 3-liter water, etc… Maybe 50 pounds?)

Bottom line is I’m upgrading from 4 emergency flushes onhand to 10. That’s a sizable jump. This last power outage I found myself driving to 6 stores at a time buying 4 gallons of water at each just to flush toilets. Not the best pandemic for that. And this was after multiple days of not showering because again, no water. Hot, humid, manual labor, no shower, forced to be out in public in the age of covid? Extreme yuck. I fantasized for 122 straight hours about upgrading my emergency preparedness, focusing on the water.

On a side note, I did learn that I can take a full “behind your ears to between your toes” thorough shower, including washing my hair twice, with 19 half-liter water bottles. I imagine it would be torture in winter, but during that hot and humid 5 day outage, it felt wonderfully refreshing. And legit I was as fully clean as if from a real shower.

17

For emergency baths, I bought from Amazon these packets of waterless wipes that can be used for cleaning one’s body. There are, I think, eight wipes in the packet (one for the left leg, one for the right leg and so on) and the whole thing can be microwaved to make it more comfortable. I haven’t had to use them yet, but they’re in my kit for a power outage. And I know my mother will fill the bathtub when there is a storm or other event when she suspects they might lose power.

18

Yeah, I can’t describe how much I was kicking myself for not filling the bathtub. I’m usually good about remembering that but I totally spaced it this time. Google says standard bath tub is 42 gallons, but I tend to only fill like 30 gallons worth (a guess) for emergency preparedness. Still, that alone is a solid 7 flushes, and it’s right there in the bathroom already. All I need is a mop bucket to scoop it from the tub to the tank and done. Measuring not necessary; the tanks all have lines where the water normally fills to. Bucket flushes rule.

Thinking back over the past couple decades, I have personally suffered through at least 3 extended power outages. That doesn’t even include Hurricane Sandy, which I don’t remember at all but must have knocked out the power at least a day or three. That’s not really long enough to make an impression.

But let’s see, there was the Northeast Blackout in 2003, when the entire Northeast from Detroit to Boston lost power for a week. Pretty sure we were out around 8 days that one. That’s what led to me setting aside 16 arizona tea jugs worth of emergency water for flushing. I’m just now finally upgrading that measure I spent literally $0.00 on 17 years ago. Yeesh.

Then in 2011 a Nor’Easter blew through on Halloween – super early for snow in this region – and knocked out our power for around a week I think. Maybe even 8 days; I can’t remember.

And now in 2020 a freak hurricane knocked out power for 5 days 2 hours. So 8 years then 9 years between major incidents, but three strikes and you’re out. Time to spend some money to upgrade my situation for when the lights go out. (But not real money; not $12k for a whole-house generator.)

19

This was my first idea, actually, almost exactly as you describe. But that was before I’d found the water jugs which turned out to be 14.5 inches high. That means a hard minimum of at least four 4" cinder blocks for the legs, preferably five blocks to make it easier getting jugs in and out.

Stacking cinder blocks 4 or 5 high just seemed inherently unstable to me. In the end it might have ended up more stable than this budget particle board, but it definitely would have taken up way more space. And a center leg would mean I couldn’t wrap the rows of jugs in single tarps like a burrito, which I am way invested in now that the tarps finally arrived (this morning!) and I hammered out a “perfect” wrapping technique.

20

I have an electronics workbench with an inch-thick top equipment shelf. I have maybe 200lbs of test gear on it, and it has developed a noticeable bow, after decades of use. But, it doesn’t seem to be in any immediate danger of failing. I plan on flipping it over when I move it to my new office, and bolting a piece of steel box-beam to the underside to prevent any future bowing.