Screwing into outside walls

DutchmenSport wrote:
Measure the thickness of the wall at the outside door frame. You DON'T want any screws longer than that on an outside wall.

I "second" the idea of lining the inside of the area with another board and screw into that. Use Liquid Nails to hold the boards to the wall. The weight of the cloths will then go down the board and not the wall, which is very flimsey and thin.

Yep this is the best approach.

We wanted shelving in our wardrobe cabinet as well. I simply fastened small 1x1 pieces of wood to the backside of the wall that the wardrobe door was on. This supported the 1/8" plywood framed on the underside with 1x2. To support the back of the shelf (on an outside wall as well) I ran 1x2 strips of wood in a vertical position from the floor to the bottom of the lowest shelf and between each subsequent shelf thereafter . To hold these blocks in place I used sticky back velcro. I liked this method because they can be easily removed. A little over 2 years of use like this has worked out great.

I don't understand why this requires doing ANYTHING with the outside wall.....and think that probably would be a BAD idea.

Measure the thickness of the wall at the outside door frame. You DON'T want any screws longer than that on an outside wall.

I "second" the idea of lining the inside of the area with another board and screw into that. Use Liquid Nails to hold the boards to the wall. The weight of the cloths will then go down the board and not the wall, which is very flimsey and thin.

You might get some ideas of what to use by looking at other hardware screwed into the outside walls, such as window blinds/curtains, dinette table brackets, etc. On my motorhome, these are generally about inch long screws.

Don't expect a vast amount of holding power from the wall structure; it's probably just luan (cheap thin plywood) attached to a styrofoam core. A well nut or some other sort of expanding fastener would give greater holding power. (It sounds as though your stress will primarily be in shear across the screw, parallel to the wall surface, which doesn't require too much holding power.)

I'd use 1/4 or 3/8 plywood and "line" the closet and hang my shelves from that.
bumpy