Earthquake
Who had a Florida earthquake on their 2026 BINGO card? I know I didn’t, but we had a bit of earth shaking yesterday just after 1400, as a 6.1 Richter earthquake struck off the coast of Cuba. I was working at the time and the doctor, who was sitting next to me, said “Was that an earthquake? Did you feel that? I even saw the water in your cup shaking.” I didn’t notice, but I was preoccupied at the time. Sure enough, it was.
Damage
I don’t know if it was related or not, but I returned home to find my closet system had fallen off the wall. It looks like one of the screws pulled out of the wall, and this caused a cascading failure of the other screws, which caused an entire wall of the system to fall to the ground. There was some damage to it, forcing me to order $500 worth of parts. I am going to reinstall a 3/4″ plywood backer board this time. That way, I can use more screws when I secure it to the wall. The parts won’t be here until next Monday, so I will spend the day today taking the old one apart and reclaiming any undamaged parts I can find.
Network Upgrades
The network hardware is installed. I setup a few VLANs, which allows me to split the home network into segments:
- Infrastructure
- IOT devices
- Servers
- Guests
- Surveillance
Once that was done, I created rules that allow me to control traffic. As an example, the guest network can’t do anything but access the Internet and a printer. The cameras are in the surveillance network, and they can only contact the server that’s running the surveillance software. IOT devices can’t do anything but contact the Internet.
As time goes on, I will tighten up the rules to make things as secure as possible. For now, the system works and I have tested it to make sure the rules are operating as intended. Starting later this week, I will begin installing security cameras. There will be a post on that.
6 Comments
TRX · June 9, 2026 at 7:44 am
> 3/4″ backer board
—
That’s standard procedure for telco closets where I am. Some of that equipment is heavy, and drywall doesn’t have much load-carrying capacity. Plus we’re right on the New Madrid fault line.
Divemedic · June 9, 2026 at 10:27 am
The original system was screwed into the studs, but with the track rail only taking one screw per stud, and a stud only every 24 inches, I don’t think it was enough to carry the load of everything it was asked to carry. I’m putting in backer board so I can use more screws per stud.
Elrod · June 9, 2026 at 7:47 am
RE: the 3/4″ ply backer board – it will require some thought and a lot of measuring, but assuming the plan is to attach the plywood to the studs, then the closet parts to the plywood, if elevator bolts are placed in the back of the plywood before attaching the plywood to the studs, the closet parts can be attached with nuts and washers (or better yet, flanged nuts). I’ve used elevator bolts in 1/4-20, 5/16-18 and 3/8-16 for similar purposes (AFAIK, 3/8 is the largest size available). Places like HDepot and Lowes have themn in small quantities, Amazon also has them in small quantities as well as boxes of 50 and 100.
If Forstener bits are available – and you know the tricks of using them – , it’s easy to have the elevator bolts completely flush with the back of the plywood; Pro Tip: use a Forstener bit 1/4″ larger than the elevator bolt flange, makes very minor misalignment insignificant.
Divemedic · June 9, 2026 at 10:24 am
That’s actually how I attached the server cabinet to the wall. I used 5/16 bolts that were countersunk.
Elrod · June 9, 2026 at 8:56 pm
RE: countersunk bolts; elevator bolts have a large flat head that needs only about a “fat”1/8″ – or just under 5/32″ – of forstner bit work to be flush or very slighty below flush. Carriage bolts will usually work, but they really require washers because the small head will compress soft plywood and loosen – just a little – over time. Elevator bolts incorporate a larger head into the bolt all as one piece and only require a shallow countersink.
I just finished a project that used 48 of 5/16-18 X 2 elevator bolts; the heads just fit inside a 1 1/4″ flat forstnerer-cut cavity, but since no one will ever see them I used a 1 5/16″ forstner bit to give myself a little wiggle room. The trick is drill a small pilot hole – I used 3/32″ – where you want the threaded portion to go through, use that small hole to center the forstner bit, drill the correct diameter through hole after the forstner work is all done.
I was installing them in multiple panels that are a double thickness – one layer of 3/4 plywwod, one layer of 19/32 – panels were 48 X 32 and glued together – (use cauls on both sides and expect to use a LOT of parallel jaw clamps on the cauls in addition to a lot of c clamps around the perimeter to make sure there’s good clamping pressure in the center of the panels; I used polyurethane glue – Gorilla glue – that expands into the wood as it cures so it needed a lot of clamping pressure in the center of the panels – cauls were set on 8” centers). Once I was sure the forstner work was done, I drilled the 5/16 hole and “set” the elevator bolt perfectly flush with a hammer. The shank is square – like a carriage bolt – so driving it in flush locks it in place.
I’ve used them on wall panels to mount stuff (my tankless water heater is mounted on a 3/4 plywwod wall panel with six 1/4-20 X 1.5″ elevator bolts) and I’ve always spun washers and nuts finger-tight on them from the “front” so they don’t shift while I’m mountng the wall panel. I pre-drill and use Spax 1/4″ diameter large-head fasteners into the studs to hold plywood wall panels in place, but probably standard #10 washer-head cabinet mounting wood screws would work as well. Locally, HDepot used to carry Spax, don’t any longer. If you can’t find the screws you need, try McFeelys.com.
Donnie Evans · June 9, 2026 at 10:08 am
I happened to volunteer work two almost identical earthquakes in California in the 20th Century… and I’ll swear by “It is what it is.”
You can never know ahead of time what will fail. One house had almost every window broken, while the next door house had about half of the windows busted out of the walls, frame and all, but unbroken on the ground.
Comments are closed.