The blog of Steve Root

  • How much do books weigh?

    How much do books weight?
    Why would you want to know?

    Well, at work (www.rootskitchens.co.uk) we are frequently asked to supply book shelves. Remembering that every book is different, a typical selection of cookery books (at least, the selection I had to hand at the shop) weighed a total of 2.25Kg and occupied 100mm when standing on edge. Therefore, 1 metre of books would weigh 22.5Kg and our shelves and (when rounding) brackets would need to support a minimum of 25Kg/m.

    Remember though, that’s a minimum because:

    • their books may weigh more
    • they may stack books on top of books
    • their books may be shallower than their shelf and all on the front edge
    • suddenly find a new home and be replaced by heavier cast iron sausepans

    Shelf brackets (decent ones anyway) will state how much weight they have been tested to safely hold. This is normally given as an evenly placed load around the mid point of the bracket. For example, if a given bracket will support 20Kg and is 300mm long, the 20Kg is taken as acting from the middle – 150mm away from the wall. Therefore if you put all of your 20Kg weight at the far edge, 300mm away from the wall you can expect the bracket to fail.

    Also be aware that some brackets give Safe Working Load when used as a pair, whilst others will be based on each individual bracket. Remember your shelf also has a weight and you may need to take this into account.

    As a rule of thumb, if a customer says they would like to use a shelf for books I would look to find brackets that would support a minimum of 35Kg/m for a shelf 300mm deep. Therefore a 500mm long shelf would need to be able to hold 17.5Kg, and so on.

    The other thing worth thinking about is bookends – some of those can be heavier than the books! Perhaps you can find some that can be permanently fixed to stop books falling off.

  • Almost two years! – Say hello everyone

    Did you know it’s been almost two years since I created this site? Well, it has. About a year ago I revealed some of my top secret* page view statistics. Then the monthly page view totals looked like this:

    Month: Pages Viewed
    Nov 2005: 1599
    Oct 2005: 1180
    Sep 2005: 676

    Compare and contrast the following then:

    Week: Pages Viewed
    17/Sep/06 1989
    10/Sep/06 2053
    3/Sep/06 1929

    Yes, you read it correctly. There are now more visitors each week than in a whole month from last year. Another example from the logs is that 821 “Distinct Hosts Served” during the last week – say hello in the comments everyone! (see this entry for more detail about what web site stats mean).

    What are you all coming here for? Well, according to the search logs – most of you are still looking for this entry although flavour of the month is Steve Irwin – he got a mention in our holiday photos. For those who don’t know, Steve Irwin became famous from his TV programmes on wildlife (he became known as “The Crocodile Hunter”). He had a Zoo near Brisbane but was killed recently by a Sting Ray while filming a new series.

    The question you’re probably all desperate to hear the answer too is “How much have you earn’t from the Google Ads?” (written about here). Well, it’s safe to say that I haven’t even reached two significant figures. That’s another way of saying less than US$10.

    *OK, they’re not that secret it’s just I don’t process the log file often.

  • Sharpe's Enemy (Bernard Cornwell) & Sharpe's Sword (Bernard Cornwell)

    More Sharpe! This is a big series (21 Novels not counting 2 extra short stories) and I seem to be working my way through it. The trouble will be when I can’t remember which books I’ve read when I see them in the second hand book shop. I guess I’ll have to keep a list on my PDA.

    Anyway, the story continues. In Sharpe’s Enemy Sharpe finally defeats his original enemy from the first books. Sergeant Hakeswill has deserted and joined a band of renegades formed from all opposing sides (the historical note actually says there really was a band of deserters at the time!). The deserters capture a village and the wife of a British nobleman and Sharpe is sent to rescue her. That would be far to simple a task for Sharpe so of course it gets a little more complicated. He makes the first successful battle use of rockets in this book and gives Napoleon’s forces a surprise or two.

    In Sharpe’s Sword he begins by capturing a French officer who says he is a Captain but is really a much feared General. He escapes and Sharpe’s duty is to capture him once more. There are a few twists and turns, some clever camouflage, yet more romance and yet more misery. I have to wonder what rank Sharpe ends up as – I seem a good number of books away from Waterloo and I’m not sure how many ranks are left! I’ll let you know when I get there.

Search this site

Free apps

  • birthday.sroot.eu – Your birthday or other celebration date based on [years on other planets] / [how many seconds/days] / [how far you’ve travelled around the sun]
  • stampulator.sroot.eu – Calculates the combination and how many 1st, 2nd, large 1st and large 2nd class Royal Mail stamps you need on large envelopes and packets

Recent posts

Archives

Categories