particle board shelves: paint or poly?

[NetWareHead]

I have a shelving kit that i bought from home depot, nice sturdy steel rails with heavy duty particle board shelves. I bought 2 kits at once and assembled the first kit only since I didnt have room for the second shelf kit in the basement. The basement is humid and Ive noticed that the particle board on the first shelf kit is growing some mold; its been in the basement for a few months now.

Id like to seal up the particle board on the second shelf kit to make it impervious to moisture and.mold. I have a bunch of polyurethane which I think should work. If poly is good enough for wood flooring then I think it can handle shelf abuse. Im thinking 2 coats minimum is needed. Or would a paint be more appropriate here?

Second is what to do with the moldy shelves from the first kit. Ill try scrubbing them with bleach and then poly or paint them like the new shelves.

 

[lxskllr]

Poly or paint. I'd use what you want to get rid of most. On a technical level, I think poly's a bit better, but not enough to worry about for cheap shelves.

Bleach wash, then paint should work fine.

 

[vi edit]

Paint + Poly? That's what I do with furniture. Prime it, paint it, then poly it. Makes for a durable finish that's easy to clean.

 

[jagec]

I'm pretty sure that I have the same shelves. The top and bottom have a laminate brown pattern, and the edges are unsealed, right? If they have already absorbed moisture/grown mold, it's probably too late to seal them. Mine have started to sag (weight plus humidity plus time). Get new plywood, cut to size and seal, replace. For the second kit you can just seal the existing shelves since they'll be dry.

 

[Jeff7]

My recommendation: Put the budget of this project toward a steel shelf set, something like this.
Or there's also some plastic shelving, I think from Rubbermaid, that's actually pretty good. I think it's low-density or high-density polyethylene, and it's fairly durable and strong. I bought it several years ago for use at my parents' house. Damned if I can find it now though. :\
Edit: Ah, found them. And it looks like they've discontinued them. Wonderful. 180lb capacity per shelf.

And I've tried Plano's shelves. The first set I tried had to be returned, as they were damaged right out of the box. The shelves themselves were brittle, the set didn't feel terribly stable, and they sagged even when loaded with less than their rated weight.

Just watch the weight limit on some of these sets. They like to cheap out on materials so hard that the weight limits are extremely low.
Want to store books on a store-bought bookshelf? Hopefully they're just hollow movie-prop books.

Particle board shelves will eventually sag from just their own weight.