How To Attach Pallet Wood To Concrete Wall? (Solved)

In addition to its original purpose, a wooden pallet can also be used as a building material for different decorative furniture to be hung on the wall, The boards can be used disassembled as individual components or the pallet structure can be used partially or in one piece.

The easiest way to attach disassembled pallet boards to clad a wall may be to use screws to attach it directly to the wall, but this can be a slightly more complicated task when it comes to attaching complete pallet structures to a wall.

A full pallet can be quite heavy to hang on a wall, The standard pallet size is 48″ X 40″ with each deck board being 3 ½” wide 5/16″ thick, and Pallet weight may vary but in generals, standard pallets weigh between 30-48 lbs (about 18 kg). A whole pallet can be a bit heavy to hang on a wall, For an object as big and heavy as a pallet, you’ll need 3 1/2-inch wood screws.

In this article, I will tell you some ways how you can attach a complete pallet to a wall, including a very creative way in which you don’t have to use screws directly.

Also, I will detail the different ways of how to attach pallet slats to a wall.

Attaching Pallet Slats to a Concrete Wall

Pallet boards have several ways of being fastened to a wall, the most economical way is to use concrete nails, the nails should be long enough to penetrate at least half an inch into the wall.

But using nails may require some skill, the other common way to attach pallet boards to a concrete wall is with concrete screws (masonry screws), the trick is to pre-drill the hole in both the wood and the concrete to make the job easier.

Many people also choose to attach vertical slats to the wall at a distance of approximately 16 inches, and on top of these vertical slats, they screw the horizontal pallet slats taking the level from the bottom of the wall.

Fixing a complete pallet to the wall with steel angle brackets

I know that attaching pallets with metal angle brackets works because I saw this on a personal project I did, some contractors made some large chandeliers out of pallets and attached them to the wall using L-shaped metal angle brackets.

We know that pallets are wooden structures designed to support a large amount of weight, but in the case of a pallet hanging on a wall, the acting loads and forces will be tension and not compression as when a pallet is on the ground.

The idea is to support the weight of the pallet with the help of the wall supports, the fulcrum to support this weight is the bottom of the pallet, as well as the top which will cause downward and forward tension forces.

For the metal anchors to have a good “grip” they should be placed on each of the pallet blocks as shown in the picture.

This could be solved by using steel support angle pieces and distributing several of these pieces on the bottom of the pallet for support, and on the top.

One side of the steel angle piece (vertical side) is fixed to the concrete wall, and the other side (horizontal side) is fixed to the wooden pallet, so it is necessary to use different screws.

The screws for the pallet part must be wood screws, ideally flat head, fine point, and whose thickness does not exceed the diameters drilled in the anchor, I recommend that you acquire an anchor first as an example and try the screws to verify their fit.

For the part that goes into the concrete wall, you must get concrete screws that can penetrate at least 2 inches into the concrete wall.

Advantages of this way of fixing the pallet: due to the metal anchors and screws fixed both on the wall and on the pallet, this type of fastening is quite secure, ideal for when you want to hang something heavy on the pallet, such as a TV.

Disadvantages of this way of fixing pallets: depending on the height at which the pallet is placed, the anchors could be visible and this may not look very aesthetic, although you could hide the anchors with wooden framing, this would be an excess of work.

Attaching a pallet without screwing it directly to the wall

You can fix a pallet to a wall without the need to screw it directly to it, I saw this type of work in the creation of a “floating” shelves.

It consists of placing a wooden board cut at an approximate angle of 45 degrees on the wall, and the other part of the plank on top of the pallet, this way you can hang the pallet to the wall eliminating the tension forces.

Yes…I know you may have had to read twice to understand, I’m sorry, but it’s better to explain this with pictures:

 

 

With this method, you have the advantage that you do not need to fix the pallet directly to the wall, and it is also a very aesthetic work as it would give the impression that the pallet is “floating” on the wall.

The disadvantage of attaching the pallet this way, any lateral force applied to the pallet could move or displace it, so it is not advisable to do this if you plan to hang heavy objects on the pallet.

Can you attach a pallet to the drywall?

In the situation where you need to attach a full pallet to a drywall wall, the ideal solution is to drive drywall screws through the wood of the pallet into the studs that back the drywall, the studs act as structural support.

As for knowing where the studs are in the wall, we have already touched on this several times, but among the various solutions for this, is to use a stud finder, if you don’t have one, you can stand at the edge of the wall and measure 16 inches (distance at which the studs are usually placed) to one side and use your hands to perform an acoustic test on the wall.

Can you glue the pallets to the concrete wall without screwing them?

Yes, there is a good quality construction adhesive that is able to glue wood to concrete, this adhesive is super strong and after letting the glue dry for a full day the pallet will be permanently glued to the wall.

This wood-to-wall adhesive can be found at your nearest and largest hardware store, you can find it under the name of epoxy glue, or “liquid nails”.

Although this may not be convenient, in case you need to remove the pallet later or move it out of position you would have to undo all the work and repoint the wall.