How To Remove Merillat Drawer Slide Brackets

Yous may call back that in my How To Be Content With Your Kitchen post, I wrote about how much I love my sliding kitchen cabinet shelves.

Well, that very dark, nosotros were in the living room and heard a mysterious crashing sound.

We looked all effectually the house, couldn't figure it out, and so Joshua opened the larger of my two sliding-drawer-cabinets (not the one pictured above), and lo and behold, the brackets had given manner and the whole thing had fallen.

(I was all, "Hmm. If this is what happens when I say I'm thankful for something, I need to break that habit!")

Thankfully, no dishes had broken, but the brackets needed some help.

They're this type of bracket:

…..and later some googling, I discovered that our cabinets were made by Merillat, and that a lot of people have had problem with these brackets breaking.

I thought information technology would be simple to gild a few new ones, simply nope.

Merillat stopped making these available, and the only solution they now offer is to order a whole new $xv sliding track system, which includes brackets.

I slept on it, and in the morning, I decided to only press the like shooting fish in a barrel button and guild the new track organisation.

Just then when I started to check out, they tacked on another $10 for shipping, and that sent me over the edge.

$25 when all I needed were two small plastic brackets??

Gah!

I was pretty crabby about that, and I wrote a polite but unhappy email to the customer service person who'd informed me about Merillat's fix.

(I made sure to let her know that I was aware that this was not her fault, just that I was unhappy with Merillat.)

I left the Merillat site without buying anything and hopped in my car for a trip to the local hardware store. The guy in that location who helped me said, yup, that'south a unique bracket, and a one-size-fits-all replacement won't work.

So he took me to the plumbing aisle, handed me two hose clamps, and sent me on my mode.

(I retrieve I paid $ane for the 2 clamps.)

Hose clamps?

Yup. The lesser of each subclass had separated, but not completely fallen off, so his thought was to clench the bracket together and reinstall information technology.

I like the way he thinks.

I wasn't sure in that location would exist room inside the cabinet for the clamps, but I tried it out, and there was indeed space.

(Run into how there'due south enough of empty infinite beside the bracket for a clamp?)

So I glued each subclass piece together with E6000 mucilage, and then tightened the hose clench around the brackets.

I let them dry for over 24 hours, just to be on the safe side, and then cautiously reinstalled them.

In order for the drawer to shut all the way, I had to slide the hose clamps all the way to the dorsum, which makes the bracket not quite equally strong, but so far, they're holding upward fine.

(I might have permit out an audible "Ha!" when I saw that the set up was working. Ahem.)

To be on the safe side, I rearranged my pots and pans a bit so that the drawer is holding less weight, and two weeks afterwards, all is still well.

I don't know if this set will agree upward forever, but for the moment, I am deriving neat satisfaction from non ownership Merillat's drawer runway set.

If these do give out, the next thing I'll practice is endeavor these brackets, which I've read are a good replacement for the discontinued Merillat subclass. A pair but costs $iii.50, so I feel like they're a decent option.

And they would all the same requite me the satisfaction of non buying that kit from Merillat.

But to be articulate, I'm not especially upset that my Merillat brackets broke. They're fairly one-time, and that drawer had some pretty heavy Pyrex on it.

What DOES upset me is that they've stopped making a small, inexpensive office bachelor separately, and that they make you lot buy a whole new track set merely to get two brackets. It'southward such a waste material of resources and money.

Dear people of Merillat, if you ever meet my mail service, hear this: I don't want new tracks! I just want brackets.

I know in the grand scheme of things, $25 is not the cease of the world. And usually I don't get hung up on the principle of the thing, but for whatever reason, I got seriously hung up on this one, and I'm pretty stubbornly set confronting ordering that kit from Merillat.

I'll keep you posted every so often to permit y'all know if my clamped brackets are still property on. 😉

____________________

Would you have been crabby almost the $25 replacement kit? Or would you accept merely bought it anyway?

P.S. I'chiliad sure some of you are wondering why I didn't just turn the brackets upside down. I did recall of that immediately and I gave it a try, but the drawer wouldn't close properly with upside downwardly brackets. Oh well.

P.P.South. A few days after I decided not to buy the kit, Merillat sent me a, "You left something in your cart!" e-mail, and I was all, "Um, yep, that wasn't an accident." 😉