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Office desks, the staple (and envy to myself) of every home office. There is nothing better than showing these off and parading them around whenever you have visitors over. But have you ever bought something a little bit too big and feared that it might cave your office desk in? I know I have!
Good quality office desks can typically hold between 100 to 880 pounds or 45kg to 400kg in weight. Some office desks made out of stronger materials like metal hold much more weight than their plastic counterparts.
So what about the different types of desks, what is the difference in weight load? And are there any ways to bolster the amount of weight your desk can hold?
Now if your interested in my recommendations for desks you can see them listen below:
Keep reading to find out more.
(Just a heads up a lot of people reading my blog are in the process of designing their own home office. If you want to save some of the painstaking time I did in designing my office, you can find my recommended products here)
How much weight can your home desk hold?
Let’s paint a picture, you’re in your home office, installing a fish tank ( yes that’s right you can somehow afford a home aquarium) anyway you’ve mapped out the perfect place to put it and rest the aquarium on your desk.
The next thing you know your fish are flipping around your office floor, your desk has caved in and your ankle deep in filtered water… aquaman you are not.
It might sound a little bit outlandish but finding out how much weight your desk can hold might be vital information you might need to keep in the back of your head.
Now it’s worth noting that I’m not an engineer, but luckily a few of my friends are. One with a background on heating systems and bridges, so he knows a thing or two about weight loads. The other holding a masters degree at Aston University focused on chemical engineering but still very much a whiz when it comes to weight loads.
Their estimation was that most office desks should be able to sustain between 100 – 300 pounds.
They pointed me towards the American Wood Council and that 1 square foot of world would typically be able to hold 30-40 pounds so a 4ft x 2ft desk ( or 8 square foot) would be able to hold between 240 and 320 pounds.
Let’s look at some direct examples from some of my favorite desks from amazon:
|
Desk Name |
Weight Capacity |
| Need Computer (120cmx60cm) | 881 pounds (400kg) weight load |
| Office Hippo | 176 pounds (80kg) weight load |
| Adjustable Standing Computer | 140 pounds (63.5 kg) |
| Bush Furniture | 200 pounds (90.71kg) |
| Coavas Computer L shaped | 110 pounds (50kg) weight load |
As you can see these all fit in with my friends recommendations.
However desks are vastly different from one another and can hold much more or much less weight depending on the tabletops, legs and materials they are made from.
On top of this, desks are likely to be one of your home offices biggest expenses so it’s important that we look at some more information to confirm that 100 – 300 pound weight load is accurate.
The different types of desks
Office desks fall under a variety of different types. I mean it might not have been one of those things you might have considered but they fall under a wide variety. If you already have one take a good look at it.
If your desk is wooden? Does it have draws or excess storage space? Is it a standing desk? Or does it have wheels? There are literally thousands of variations when it comes to desks.
In my (very broad) opinion, desks can be broken down into the following categories:
- Wooden desks
- Computer desks
- Metal Desks
- Standing Desks
Let’s look at the data from each of these:
Wooden Desks
Wooden desks are most likely the most common types of desks out there. They can either have wooden or metal legs but are usually the most versatile with most desks being variations of these.
The average weight load of a wooden desk is: 212 pounds (96.1kg)
| Desk Name | Weight | Height | Weight load |
| OneSpace Modern Writing Desk | 42 pounds (19.05kg) | 29 inches (73.66cm) | 40 pounds (18.1kg) |
| HOMECHO Writing | 55.9 pounds (25.35kg) | 37.8 inches (96cm) | 220 pounds (99.7kg) |
| Ironck Desk | 44.8 pounds (20.32kg) | 29.7 inches (75.43cm) | 200 pounds (90.7kg) |
| Ironck 55inch | 44.8 pounds (20.32kg) | 29.9 inches (75.43cm) | 500 pounds (226kg) |
| SHW L Shaped | 50.7 pounds (22.71kg) | 28.3 inches (71.88cm) | 100 pounds (45.3kg) |
Computer Desks
Computer desks are typically solely used for holding computers ( surprise surprise) . Some even come with individual areas for each section of your computer, so a stand for your printer, mouse scanner and any other peripherals.
The average weight load for a computer desk is: 73 pounds (33.1kg)
| Desk Name | Weight | Height | Weight Load |
| Furinno Efficient | 22 pounds (9.97kg) | 33.6 inches (85.34cm) | 40 pounds (18.1kg) |
| Tower Computer Desk | 42.7 pounds (21.63kg) | 47.6 inches (120.90cm) | 100 pounds (45.3kg) |
| L Shaped Computer Desk | 40 pounds (18.14kg) | 28 inches (71.12cm) | 100 pounds (45.3kg) |
| Furinno Econ | 35 pounds (15.87kg) | 34.1 inches (86.61cm) | 25 pounds (11.3kg) |
| Mecor Glass | 74.9 pounds (33.97kg) | 38.6 inches (98.04) | 100 pounds (45.3kg) |
Metal Desks
Metal desks are typically more expensive than wooden desks due to the tougher materials. Does this mean that they are able to hold more weight?
The average weight load of metals desks is: 230 pounds (104kg)
| Desk Name | Weight | Height | Weight Load |
| Tribesigns L shaped | 70.5 pounds (31.97kg) | 49.2 inches (124.96cm) | 150 pounds (68kg) |
| Onespace Stanton Computer Desk | 28.6 pounds (12.97kg) | 22 inches (55.88cm) | 200 pounds (90.7kg) |
| Elegant 55inch | 54.7 pounds (24.81kg) | 27.5 inches (69.85cm) | 500 pounds (226kg) |
| Yoleo Tower Computer Desk | 40 pounds (18.14kg) | 47.6 inches (120.90cm) | 100 pounds (45.3kg) |
| Walker Edison L Shaped | 57 pounds (25.85kg) | 29 inches (73.66cm) | 200 pounds (90.7kg) |
Standing Desks
Standing Desks are becoming more and more common with more people looking for a way to stay healthy whilst they work ( standing up all day is much easier than a hefty HIIT workout). Recent studies have shown the benefits of getting up and moving around when you work, so they definitely might be worth considering.
They typically are either 100% freestanding or sit/stand existing table tops.
The average weight load of standing desks is 82.25 pounds (37.3kg)
| Desk Name | Weight | Height | Weight Load |
| Vivo Adjustable | 38.3 pounds (17.37kg) | 48.8 inches (123.95cm) | 60 pounds (27.2kg) |
| Vivo Black | 42.5 pounds (19.27kg) | 36 inches (91.44cm) | 60 pounds (27.2kg) |
| Vivo Electric | 38.3 pounds (17.37kg) | 48.8 inches (123.95cm) | 176 pounds (79.8kg) |
| Seville Classics | 52 pounds (23.58kg) | 19.1 inches (48.51cm) | 33 pounds (14.9kg) |
Which desks can hold the most amount of weight?
As we can see the results of our quick study, metal desks are able to support more weight than their wooden and freestanding counterparts with a total average weight load of 230 pounds.
What are the averages
Now if we were to add up the averages of these results, we would get an average weight load capacity of 149.3 pounds.
Slap bang in the middle of the 100-300 pound range.
How to bolster the amount of weight your desk can hold?
Okay so as you can tell a lot of the desks we’ve gone through have weight limits so it wouldn’t be wise to go over these too much, but what if you were really struggling for space and your desk was the only free area you had to store items.
How would you go about it? In my opinion I would try out the following 3 methods:
Try and use lighter goods
Option one is to try not to overload the desk in the first place. Do you really need that heavy computer tower and third monitor? Or can a laptop do? Before you design your office try to make a list of necessities.
Change your tabletop
Option two would be to try out some woodworking/DIY and try to replace the existing worktop to some more secure. If you have a thin desktop made of MDF or MDF like materials you can try to replace it with something stronger like a thick oak table top which is likely to support much more weight.
Bolster your legs
Option three is to improve the support mechanism for the table top. If you buy a desk on the cheaper side. It’s almost guaranteed that you might not have the strongest support mechanism so from going something lightweight like aluminum to replacing it a higher grade steel will mean you should double or even triple your weight load.
Wrapping things up
I bet you didn’t think there would be that many numbers that you’d have to go through right?
As you can tell, weight loads on desks vary greatly depending on which desks you go. My engineering friends were close in their estimate but I defiantly think a range of 100 – 300 pounds for the average desk is the safe amount of weight load with this going all the way up to 800 pounds if you buy a truly high end item
Hopefully it’s been useful though I’m giving you ideas in the amount of weight load your desk needs to have.
Finally a lot of people reading my blog want to know what products I recommend for a home office/remote working. You can find out my recommendations here and learn how I make money whilst working remotely on the side here.
Now if you’re interested in learning a little more about how much weight standing desks can hold or why the weight limits on chairs are important feel free to check out the blog posts below:
Happy home working.
Fehed.
P.S
If you’ve already bought a desk and don’t know what the weight load is, feel free to have a look at the assembly manual. That usually has the weight capacity listed.
The content on this on this site has been written by Fehed Nicass who has over a decades worth of experience in sales and has worked remotely for the past 2 years.