Overhead pot rack installation

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a Calphalon hanging pot rack. After sitting around for about five years, I’m finally ready to hang it. I don’t know how much it weighs, but I’ll guess around ten pounds. It has a 60-pound capacity. Now the question is how to mount it.

I have low ceilings; 85 inches. Instead of hanging it by its chains, I want to hang it from four eye-bolts and the supplied carabiners. When we replaced the overhead light fixture, it looked like there might be a double layer of sheetrock on the ceiling. (The house has been around for over 80 years. Lots of weird things in it.) I can only assume that the whole kitchen ceiling is like this. Would it be reasonable to use toggle eye bolts like this one? Or should I use screw eyes screwed into a stud? The hanging holes are 16" apart, but there’s no guarantee that the studs are – or if they run in the correct direction. (I’d have to get a stud finder.)

I have a Calphalon stainless steel cookware set (22.6 pounds), and also some of their non-stick ones. I’ll probably just hang the frying pans and lids. I don’t know about the pots. There aren’t enough hooks anyway. But assuming I start hanging my cast iron as well, let’s assume that the ceiling would need to support 70 to 80 pounds.

2

I have a similar rack that hangs from two chains, but I have a 9-foot ceiling (hates 'em, I do). I ran two 3" stainless steel eyebolts into the joist, which happened to run parallel to the counter and just a bit set back from the working side, perfect.

No matter what goes between the rack and the ceiling, make sure the eyebolts or hooks go into joists. If you can’t find joists, do NOT hang them from any kind of drywall mount, even a large toggle-backed one. If it’s not impossible, I’d use a stud finder, and then a fine drill (1/16, long) to drill verification holes to locate the centerline of each joist. It’s a hell of a lot easier to patch two or three neat little holes than to have an overhead hang pull part of your ceiling down.

3

Yeah, never toggle bolts. Stud finders are cheap, but follow up with it with the thinnest drill bit you can find and making sure you’re going into wood.

Personally, I wouldn’t count on the rack hooks lining up correctly with the ceiling studs - what if the studs are running perpendicular to the direction that you wish to hang the rack? Instead, use a couple of nicely finished pieces of wood to hang the rack from, then concentrate on mounting those pieces of wood. Since they’ll be covering up any extra holes, you can just drill as many holes as needed until you’re absolutely sure that you are going into studs. Then you can put nice, solid eye bolts through the wood to hang the rack from, and counter-sink the washers and bolts on the side of the pieces of wood that face the ceiling. And you can also counter-sink the lag screws that are going to be going into the studs, maybe following up with some decorative caps or short pieces of dowel.

Do it in this way, and you can hang a dozen pieces of cast iron cookware.

ETA: If you are hanging this a long way down, DON’T use chain. Instead, use threaded rod and you won’t have a problem with the rack swinging.

4

Agree with gaffa, screw boards into studs, then screw eyebolts into the boards. Toggle bolts and other drywall connectors should never be used to hang any significant weight.

5

I’ll buy a stud finder this weekend.

6

put eye screws into the ceiling joists.

alternately span ceiling joists above the ceiling with 2x4 and use eye bolts or eye screws.

alternately span a few ceiling joists below the ceiling with some decorative 1x4 boards which are wood screwed ampley to the ceiling joists with a bunch of large wood screws. you can put toggle bolts through these decorative 1x4 boards.

7

Another vote for screwing eye bolts into the studs. Then you can attach the pot rack to the eye bolts in (more or less) whatever manner you see fit.

My pot rack came with something that was essentially that…and didn’t work for my application. It would have meant me orientating it in the wrong direction. I put eye bolts in the ceiling and used chains. Of course, the difference is that the eye bolts are probably 2 inches wider, on each side, than the pot rack. Since the chains come down at an angle it doesn’t swing at all.

Actually, I just went and looked, here’s what I did. Those long hook things were supposed to go directly from the eye bolts to the pot rack (perpendicular to the ceiling), but that wouldn’t work unless the rack was rotated 90 degrees. This thing wasn’t very versatile with it’s installation options, but this works out pretty well.

This pot rack was one of those great kitchen purchases too. It looks nice (I have nice looking SS pots and pans), but not just that, it meant I could clear out like two cabinets and it doesn’t take up any space since it’s over a kitchen cart. It was money very well spent. I suggest them to anyone that’s looking to free up cabinet space and has a place to put it.

8

I finally put up the rack. Things kept coming up on the weekends: Errands, chores, big late breakfasts that made me lazy, football games…

I bought a stud finder. It kind of worked. The overhead is not only double-thick, but it’s also textured. I found one stud several times and decided it was there. I could not detect a stud sixteen inches from the first one at all. I did find one a couple of feet away, but sometimes I found it and sometimes I couldn’t I ended up ‘prospecting’ with the drill. I found one on the fourth try. :rolleyes:

Since the studs were not 16" apart, I could not hang the rack directly from the screw eyes by the supplied screw links. And this presented another problem. I only had the supplied four screw links, so there was no way to attach the other end of the chains I would now have to use. I had to go to the hardware store. Man, did I get boned! :mad: Those puppies were $4.99 each :eek: I mean, they should be 50¢. Seventy-five cents at the most. Certainly under a dollar. But it’s better than a 50-mile round trip to Home Despot. And it was another $27 for bolt cutters for cutting chain.

I used two links from each of the chains to hang the rack. That kept the rack high enough, and also allowed the screw links on the rack to reach the screw eyes in the overhead. The rack came with four single hooks and two double hooks. I hung up the following cookware: 10-inch and 8-inch nonstick omelette pans, Tri-Ply pots and pans except for the big pot and the ‘steamer’ thing that goes inside of it, a 1 qt. nonstick saucepan, a 12-inch ‘everyday’ pan, and all of the lids (that slide handily over the pan handles) except for the 12" one that I put on top of the rack. I have another set of the nonstick omelette pans, one of which someone put on too-high heat. I’m not saying who, but there are only two humans in the house and I didn’t do it! But I don’t have enough hooks for them, so I ordered three pair of the single hooks from Amazon.

Now I have lots of room under the old counter – and I found my old heavy-bottom, but otherwise cheap, stainless steel pans and lids. I ‘never’ use them, and I don’t want to hang them. I’ll keep them around, under the old counter, until I can give them to someone in need. That’s how I got rid of my brand-new Mr. Coffee coffee maker. The SO had a student whose house burned down, and she asked if she could give it to them. Naturally, several months after giving away the NIB pot, her many-years-old one started leaking.

I’m very happy to have my pots hanging up and readily accessible. Would’ve done it five years ago, but I didn’t have a plan (that I could afford to pull off) for the kitchen. The SO says she always wanted a pot rack, and she likes it too. :slight_smile:

9

Correction (too late to edit): The rack came with six single hooks.