HyLoft 540 45-Inch-by-45-Inch Overhead Storage System, White

I was shopping for a garage ceiling storage system and, based upon the Amazon reviews, I settled on this one. I've been very happy. Not only was the HyLoft Overhead Storage System less expensive than others (and Amazon easily had the best price), I've found it to be very forgiving and very well designed.

The foundation of the HyLoft system are a pair of rigid trapeze like structures which hang down from the ceiling. They can be spaced any number of distances apart -wherever your ceiling joists (beams) are -which is very convenient. (With other systems, by contrast, the distances between the supports are fixed). What's also great about the HyLoft system is that it goes up in very small pieces. First the ceiling brackets, then the arms and cross-braces, and finally the three-piece grate which makes up the base. It's easily a one-man job, so no one needs to hang around to help hold the unit up against the ceiling for you.

Lastly, it's also not absolutely critical that everything be placed in exactly the right place. If you're off by a little here or you're a little crooked there, everything is still going to work out fine.

The most difficult part of the entire process is finding the edges of the joist, but this has been made easier too. Just get one of the newer stud finders from Zircon. Mine blinks and throws out a line of light when it reaches the EDGE of the joist. I use blue masking tape (rather than pencil) to keep my ceiling clean. Having both edges marked allowed me to hammer and drill with confidence. (I didn't make a single bad hole once!)

Each 45" x 45" unit is precisely sized to fit those 15 gallon red-topped plastic storage boxes one gets at Home Depot. Each HyLoft rack will hold a DOZEN boxes each! I had originally ordered the 4 ft. by 4 ft. HyLoft racks, but Amazon sent me the 45" x 45" version instead. But since each unit still held twelve storage boxes, I was just as happy! And the slightly smaller size gave me more room around the sides which made loading boxes into it that much easier.

I have a three-car garage with roll-up doors (one is a double), and I was able to put up five racks (fully extended to 27") in the area behind the garage door motors. That's 5 x 12 boxes or 60 boxes total storage! I was also able to mount two more racks towards the front above where the doors roll up into on the double-sized door. Since these were limited to 16" inches in depth, I was only able to hold another six boxes on each (twelve all together for both), for a total of 72 boxes of storage (or the rough equivalent when one takes into account the odd-size pieces of luggage, picnic coolers, tool boxes, and the like). This left my floor totally clear for bicycles and my lawnmower -which I had a hard time getting to earlier! (Needless to say, my garage was an absolute mess before I got the HyLofts!)

Since the HyLoft units are limited to about 250 pounds each, I put the heavier items in the front racks which could only hold a single layer of boxes.

My wife was exceptionally pleased but mainly because she was confident that we had rats living in and amongst all of the boxes. (We didn't, but I didn't mind that she thought that since it kept her out of the garage, and my little domain! "Hey honey, was that a rat?") Now she's talking about putting a billiards table or a ping pong table in the garage, so I guess making the change was definitely for the better.

The HyLoft Overhead Storage System is one that I would wholeheartedly recommend!

Truly awesome, and awe inspiring. I have two of these in my garage now, and I think I will eventually fill up most of my ceiling space with these HyLoft systems. They are a cinch to install, the hardest part for me was to find the studs in the ceiling to hang from. (Hint: if you have a crappy studfinder like I do that doesn't work through popcorn ceilings, just try banging nails into the ceiling every inch or two, until one sticks or is hard to pound in. That's the stud.)

Although I was a bit nervous at first standing/sitting under one of these overhead storage systems, both of my crappy installations have help up for 6 months or more, with no loosening, etc.

Their adjustability is nice, but maybe not really needed, after you have the system installed you're not going to really want to adjust the height of it, but I guess you can if you need to. I have it adjusted to about in the middle for height, and I can put full-size totes/rubbermaid storage bins on the shelfs, and have room for more of my clutter on top of them.

Maybe someday I will be able to park my car in my garage using these HyLoft systems.

Nah, I'll just probably buy more crap.

From Amazon.

Buy HyLoft 540 45-Inch-by-45-Inch Overhead Storage System, White Now

This is a very sturdy product. It is sized such that 4 of these fit over a 16' wide garage door, allowing for the door opener track to go between the middle two. The challenging part of the install is getting the brackets installed into the studs. Stud sensors don't work really well when there are 2 sheets of drywall on the garage ceiling. Fortunately, the lag screws they provide are 2 1/2" or 3" long, so they are plenty long enough.

Here are 2 tips I learned the hard way:

1) If you install these as close to the front of your garage as possible you will increase the risk of the garage door hitting the shelves, requiring you to raise the shelves and decrease the max storage height. This is because the door is making the turn from vertical to horizontal right near the front of the garage and the leading edge of each door panel reaches its highest point as it is making the turn. This caused me to need to move the shelves up one hole (about 2"). In hindsight, I should have moved the shelves one more stud away from the front of the garage and I would have avoided this conflict, while still keeping all my stuff over the garage door (when the door is raised).

2) When installing the actual shelves, make sure that the long bars of each shelf are on top, and the shorter bars are on the bottom. This will make sliding items on/off the shelves easier.

I wish these were mentioned in the instructions. Since most of my items still fit on the shelves over the garage door, I don't think I am going to take these back down and reinstall them just to get the extra 2" back. However, I have 2 big plastic storage totes which don't fit now but could if I get the 2" back.

Read Best Reviews of HyLoft 540 45-Inch-by-45-Inch Overhead Storage System, White Here

This is constructed of heavy duty steel, and is fairly easy (although frustrating at times) to install for one person. Installation takes about 1 to 1.5 hours for the first rack for someone relatively competent with simple tools, but might take longer depending on where it is being installed.

I installed mine on a ceiling with a step in it, where it changes height by about 10". I liked how I could adjust each support individually to the length I needed to hang halfway under the step of the ceiling. The starter nails to line up the small angle brackets on the ceiling were more trouble than they were worth as there was inadequate clearance for my hammer to get them in effectively. I gave up and just marked and drilled the holes for the support screws instead without using the nail. The nail is just for determining that you are in a stud, which I checked before hand.

Overall the installation is forgiving, you can be off about 1" on the measurements and still have a rack that fits, but this is only because my primary complaint about the design that follows.

Why I gave this 3 stars? The unit has no lateral support. It will swing a full 2" side to side because the vertical supports are just flat steel that are free to bend. Even fore-aft motion is only restrained by the bolts, so a strong bump would cause it to shift slightly forwards or backwards. The only direction that it supports weight is vertically, which is fine if you only use it for storage, but loading and unloading will cause the rack to swing. I will have to add some supports to prevent it from moving every time I load/unload wood.

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The other reviews for this overhead storage system cover pretty much everything. This design (white racks pictured), is also the same that Lowes carries (grey and white). Sams club has a 2-pack of the same unit and design in chrome for about 100 dollars, saving you some money. But just recently I found these at Costco, but redesigned. Instead of flat metal strapping for the legs of the unit, they switched to a metal tube design. U-shaped and rigid makes the units very stable now, and easier to install. those were the two biggest problems I had with these orignal ones, 1) they sway too much when taking stuff up or down, and 2) they make for a very sloppy and uneven install since the legs and brackets are not rigid solid pieces. They are only available at Costco now, and only in chrome. The size is about the same, just short of 4 feet square. The price was 39.99 too, lower than these older designed ones. I highly recommend the newly designed units if you can find them at your local Costco, in the shelving isle. Now I can put stuff up and take it down without the swinging and swaying. It definetely feels more solid, like I could hang from the unit like monkey bars.

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