How To Assemble Your Fleximounts Garage Ceiling Storage Rack

Hey, this is Dirt Farmer Jay from DirtFarmerJay.com. Well, you've purchased the Flexi-Mounts ceiling-mounted storage rack system, and we'll show you how to put it together. There's some cool things that you can do that help speed it up, some tools that you should acquire or use, even though they provide some tools for you. We'll show you step-by-step some things you can do to make a successful installation quickly. So as we get going, the first thing you need to know is what kind of tools are going to be helpful to you. So let's briefly look at some things that might help you along. First of all, a good assortment of drills is always helpful. We like to put different bits in each one. This is a driver that will allow you to put different sockets, and even a hex key driver on the end of it. Of course, the standard Phillips holder, and the drill bit that we're going to use to drill the pilot holes for the lag bolts. Of course, drill bits. Tape measures are always very handy. These are various bits. These are provided, one hex key and a driver by Flexi-Mounts, and you can certainly put the unit together using these, but using these other tools will greatly speed things up. A clamp is very helpful as you're aligning parts and holding them together. And, of course, a standard ratchet. This can be a 3-8 or a half-inch, along with a 13-millimeter hex wrench like this. A closed-end, open-end wrench is very helpful. And we made a purchase for this of these drivers that are hex key that really will help you speed up the installation of all the fasteners there. One of the things that we knew right away that could be enhanced is washers being used with that, and I'll show you that a little bit later of the difference between the two things. You also want ladders that are going to be helpful for you getting up and down the ladder. And you'll see in the shot, my dad is on the set today, and you shouldn't try to do one of these alone. It's possible, and there's tricks you can do to do that, but it goes a lot easier if you have a good helper. So the first thing you need to do is determine where you want to place the storage system in your garage. We decided to put it more out in the center so you could get to it all the way around the unit. But you also need to determine how far down you want to suspend it off the ceiling. Well, the Flexi-Mount system allows you to select a range from 22 inches off the ceiling down to 40 inches. In our particular setting, to clear the vehicles we've got and to give us good accessibility, we chose 32 inches. So now you're going to go ahead and assemble the down brackets that you're going to use for the height that you've chosen. Okay, so you see our completed brackets. This is the center support bracket. Everything was tightened up here. These are the corner brackets, and they are all the same. And we'll show you a little trick on that in just a moment. And as you saw in the clip, Dad found a little way there to really speed up. He went from the ratchet wrench to an impact driver on the drill, and that cuts the time probably by about 70%. Okay, now you're going to assemble the platform pieces and the kit that we have, which is a 48-by-96-inch set, a 4-by-8-foot platform. Each of these are 2-foot-by-4-foot, so we'll need to bolt them together. You're going to do that through a series of pre-drilled and pre-threaded holes here. And then there's a set of reinforcement gussets that are placed at the edge where these are junctioned together. A couple things to look for right away. Number one, we've got this upside down on the table right now, and so this is as though we're under it and the ceilings were standing on the ceiling. So you've got to make sure you orient these pieces so that they're going to have the piece holding the weight instead of being upside down here. So make sure it's this way. Number two, make sure that you orient the pieces so that the angle brackets go the same way and you don't spin one around. It won't assemble correctly anyway. All right, let's go ahead and put this baby together. All right, now that we have this set of hardware done, the next thing we're going to do is we're going to put the brackets that attach the ceiling of your garage. Now, FlexiMounts has provided two different kinds of fasteners depending on your type of installation. If you were doing a solid concrete ceiling, you would need to drill in and use these wedge type of fasteners that as you tighten this, this wedge unit spreads at the top. It's a quite durable and strong attachment. But we don't have that. What we have is ceiling joists and drywall. So we're going to use a lag bolt system that they provided for us. Nice hardware, but we do have one piece of advice on this. If your kit, and we're making this recommendation to FlexiMounts as well, is that they provide a washer that goes on this to better attach the bracket. Let me show you the difference between the two. You can see on your right, this one has a washer under it. Look how much better there is contact and pressure is distributed across the bracket versus just using that by itself, where I think it would have more of a tendency to pull through. Or you're putting a lot more weight on a smaller area, the washer does a better job of distributing the weight. So FlexiMounts did a great job on the hardware, but our recommendation to them is to add this washer. If you get the kit and they have not added that, it's still great hardware. Just add washers there and it'll be a better installation. All right, let's go ahead and get these brackets installed. One other thing very quickly, you want to make sure that the downrod, which is going to be attached to this, if this backside facing me was to the ceiling, you always want to make sure there is a bolt on both sides of that downrod. Never gang up the bolts on one side with it going over here. That'll lead to failure, ultimately, or at least bending the hardware. All right, let's go ahead and get these attached to the ceiling. All right, so let's find the position of the second rack. We've put up the first one and we want a symmetrical set. So we're going to extend the line. You can see we're using a laser line. That's another great tool to have here during this installation. And that's the starting point for our brackets. And then you'll see that the rest of the unit's going to lay right in in this area. If you found this to be helpful and you'd like to boost your hands-on skills for around your place or garage or shop, why don't you visit us at DirtFarmerJ.com. Until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay.