Choosing the Right Wall Anchors
finewoodworking.com
finewoodworking.com
Right now I have a 55" TV wall-mounted with nothing but staples.
I've never come across something like that in North America - I wonder if it's because (it appears) you'd need a special mount for the VESA mount to attach to?
That connecting piece can either be articulating (like the one I linked to) or just a metal hook with screw holes on the other side (that's the one I have actually).
Definitely insane but also impressively bonkers.
Has to do with all the earthquakes they get, and strong government regulations (with big nasty teeth).
Japan tends to tear down and rebuild their buildings more often than other countries. Old buildings depreciate in value rather than appreciate as people in Japan typically don't like "second hand" items up to and including housing.
Staples would be unlikely to grip sufficiently in our plasterboard. I suspect that shear would not be a problem but moments will almost certainly be a bit of a problem. The failure mode here would not be the telly crashing to the floor vertically but gradually loosening from the top of the mounting and then swinging forwards off the wall.
I use at least eight, six inch no 10 screws here for TV mounts into brickwork, with decent plugs. Into wood, ie stud wall I'll use shorter screws. I also sometimes use extra washers - depends on the load. I've never had a TV mount fail!
A decent hammer drill/driver and a decent bit can drive a 8mm hole in a few seconds. By the time you've stapled in a hundred staples, I'd be watching the News! I would certainly not be trying to explain to the Boss (wife/partner) how the TV is held up 8)
That said, those staples look like a very clever solution, given the right circumstances. Not everyone is happy with a hammer drill.
This isn’t for speed, but for when you don’t have any other option.
Most builders won't buy the nice Fischer ones for you, so have to improvise...
For places where you have a drywall dabbed to masonry you can have significant lateral movement between the plug in the masonry and the thing you are fixing on the outside of the plasterboard. That's where long plugged fixings massively help, where the plug reaches right through to the face of the dry lining.
A squirt of "sticks like ..." mixed with brick or conc. dust is another solution to consider, depending on how permanent/important/immediate the fixing is.
I just assumed that was wall paper. We had it in a living room of a house built in the US in the 1980s, it had 40 years of paint on it and was never coming off the drywall.
Of course the TV itself is hanging on the bracket with just two bolts, held down with gravity and some thin metal wire retainers. It wobbles when touched.
It's not like TVs are very heavy, and the weight adds to the friction forces holding the staples in. Especially if the staple has to pull upwards to be removed, it's unlikely to be going anywhere unless the material falls out from under it
I forgot if it was this video or another one; I've seen someone hanging from it to test the strength.
I wonder what's really easier, though. I usually hang TVs with 4-6 screws. Is it easier to put in 4-6 screws, or 100 staples?
I guess the advantage of staples is that each staple is easier, and it doesn't require juggling a screwdriver, swapping bits, ect.
https://www.amazon.com/Hangman-Products-S-2040A-Hanger-55-In...
[0] https://kabebijin.net/products/detail.php?product_id=123
I've found loads are total garbage. The only brand I have found that reliably works into brick and plaster are Fischer plugs. If I buy something that already comes with plugs, they go straight into the bin and I use my own screws and matching plugs.
Fischer has a lot of technical information freely and publicly available on their website for their screws too (e.g. https://fiproductmedia.azureedge.net/media/Certification%20D...). This is pleasing when you are mounting something that needs to take a lot of weight (shelves, large mirrors etc) and you want piece of mind.
Highly recommended - I've basically chucked everything else out and now have 3 different sized Fischer plugs and a variety of matching screws (pan head, counter sunk etc) to meet all my needs.
I am not a pro - just a DIYer who has had multiple failures in the past from cheap-ass plugs and screws who initially blamed themselves. Turns out you CAN blame the tools (well - fixings in this case) since quality fixings solved my problems.
i have saved a lot of blood, sweat, and tears by not dealing with stripped screws, flimsy drywall anchors that shred, etc.
Any fixture that comes from China these days seems to have pot-metal screws, which will pop a head at the slightest torque. Or just because they feel like it.
Just buy a box of drywall screws, and two assorted (different length / size) packs of exterior screws and machine screws, preferably ones that comes in a nice divided box, and pull from there.
I think that is fairly common in Europe, although I know that timber construction is getting more common in the past decade or two.
HN is sometimes a gem with random relevant content.
See https://blog.jumpstartinsurance.com/charming-brick-buildings...
They have an Expansion plug S which is hot garbage.
6mm: Universal plug UX
5mm (35mm deep): DuoPower
I tend to stick to the 8mm and 6mm ones, but sometimes I need "short" plugs for e.g. hanging things in hollow panel doors so I have the 5mm 35mm deep for those as things like that tend to have more delicately sized holes for smaller screws. I prefer to use the 6mm plugs for day-to-day stuff.
The 8mm Expansion plug SX can take some really chunky screws - like 5mm or 6mm diameter so I have no doubt about heavy shelves or big mirrors etc.
I've mounted (and still mounting) lot of stuff using high quality, but ordinary plastic plugs & screws. Fsicher, or any similar brand will do. Drill the hole with correct diameter, put in the plugs, screw, attach.
Hardened concrete is really a battle to drill though.
A basic corded model can be had for about 50 bucks, just make sure it has a chuck tool to really tighten the bit.
With that you can quickly drill a pilot hole into hardened concrete, and then use your favorite masonry screws to attach things to the wall. I've had good luck with tapcon screws.
For masonry get yourself a 220V hammer drill. I picked one up from Lidl a couple of years ago for €40 and it has no issues drilling into my monolithic concrete walls. If I were using it daily I'd get something a bit better quality, but for DIY it's more than enough.
OTOH, I've used a DeWalt cordless hammer drill. Brushless motors are frightening things :)
A hammer drill spins in a continuous motion, and is typically used with a spiral flute drill in a Jacobs chuck (or tool-less version of the Jacobs chuck). You can usually enable or disable the hammer action with the clutch. It has a similar mechanism that encourages the drill to tap forwards, but if you press too hard it won't do much. Just a weighty and useless add-on to an ordinary drill to justify a slightly increased price, IMO. A regular drill, even with a masonry bit, is ineffective in concrete; hammer drills can work if the bit is small and the mix used more sand and maybe fine gravel (eg. mortar or brick), but are hopeless if you encounter a larger stone. Importantly, the energy and the frequency of the hammering action are tied to the rotation - usually 1, 2, or 3 taps per revolution. You don't get heavy or rapid impacts at low RPM.
A rotary impact (whether pneumatic, corded, or cordless) has an SDS head and a mechanism that drives the head forward and aft. You can typically run it in hammer-only mode, which is impossible with a hammer drill. You may be able to shift a cam (or adjust an air valve) to change the impact power. And yeah, with a decently powerful rotary impact tool, you can run put large holes in concrete with little hassle.
Hrmm, no.
The drill I use (the 800W one) can drill up to 20mm on concrete. It taps probably 20-30 times per revolution and is able to drill earthquake resistant concrete with ease. It also taps harder if you push harder. This kind of concrete can resist thick steel nails when driven with an hammer. The nails generally break into two or get slightly bent.
When used with a good drill bit, it just drills very cleanly with a little bit of resistance in the beginning, but makes relatively quick work of it.
For reference, it's a Bosch CSB 800-2 RE, made in the 90s [0].
So, there are hammer drills, and there are hammer drills. Not all of them are created equal.
I'm not sure why you'd mention "reinforced" concrete. I thought all concrete required reinforcement of some sort? Fiber won't be an issue, but if you hit rebar it's time to relocate your hole, no matter what you're drilling with. Even if the drill can do it you're going to ruin the bit.
Concrete can be tuned for brittleness and strength. Some versions become very hard and impenetrable after they completely cure. They need more powerful drills and longer drill times since they simply resist the drill bit. It's akin to the difference between stainless steel and armor plate.
Moreover the area is rocky, and is a very active earthquake area, so that a double wall sub basement/foundation is required.
On top of that, the gated community is built by a company which is building dams regularly, so they're knowledgeable in specialty concrete mixes for both quake and moisture resistance.
[This is not a hypothetical scenario btw. :) ]
Now, apart from just being a solution, it should be mentioned that this is probably the only solution which both has sub-mm accuracy for positioning and combines it with ridiculous strength without elasticity. As in: you drill a hole, fill it, put a steel bar in it, positioning it with e.g. small pieces of wood, wait until hardened, and the thing won't ever move again in no direction. None of the typical issues like plastic and other plugs having some slack, old bricks being notoriously uneven making it extremely hard to get a hole drilled exactly at the spot you want (which is impossible anyway if you land on the edge of stone and mortar). Cons: pricey. Also most of the time it's complete overkill, I admit I like doing that just for peace of mind though :)
I used to live in an old building in Sweden where the external walls were made of thick concrete containing large stones and straw(!) The cheap drill bits I had did not last for long.
I think the issue is generally more how to get into the concrete in the first place.
I personally live in a skyscraper and have tried to drill into my walls and found out it's close to impossible without industrial equipment.
Every few months on the beginning of the month (when people move in), I can hear the furtive struggle of a drill trying to get into the load-bearing walls. How it starts off confident and then the torque decreases and decreases.
I ended up buying a rotary hammer because of this, holes on the floor (doorstoppers), ceiling, or walls right close to the ceiling was impossible with the cheap hammer drill, along with a good SDS+ drill bit feels like butter now.
I really don't know if any of the designers/architects involved have ever tried living in those apartments. I think a lot of them would choose different materials if they had to do their own DYI.
Concrete has great thermodynamic properties for living comfort. It cools at day, warms at night, transfers from cold parts of the house to hot ones, etc.
It is there on purpose (and not too difficult to drill into with a "Bohrhammer", rotary drill(?), i.e. the ones with SDS(+)).
Actually, the brick-walls we have (hollow bricks with flimsy thin walls) were harder for me to figure out. They need really careful drilling with the right tools, otherwise the brick shatters and nothing will take grip.
No one who rents a normal apartment for 1 or 2 people will own a rotary hammer they only need for 1 day every 5 years - they'll rent a powerful one at a hardware store.
But lots of people have an affordable power drill which is still good enough to drill into brick walls (since cheap power drills suck so much, you never want to use them again, but mid-range power drills are pretty all-around powerful).
I got mine because renting it for 1 day was actually more expensive than just buying a cheap one new. Still works fine after 10 years.
Drilling into the material is another matter though, I at some point invested in a hammer drill which manages that just fine.
And don't take a cheap one. Also buy good drill bits. I have reinforced concrete wall in my home and anything less than 7€ drill bits was basically one-used only.
When I initially needed one I checked how much they were to rent, it was actually cheaper to buy one than to rent one for a day. Worst-case scenario it fails an I get another cheap one, I already got my money's worth.
On the screw bits side, heavy use delegated to Bosch again, while fine stuff are handled by Wera.
Using the right drill machine however is indeed critical.
Once you spend a few decades in concrete houses, everything else seems cheap and suspect.
At least in many German houses.
You can also have concrete wall with plaster and then on top of it paint, no wallpaper at all.
Most of the time no wallpaper.
No mention of Command Strips; I was curious to see if the author had any opinion on them. I've used them with some success in the past when I didn't want to put a hole in a wall.
Anyone have any knowledge of their pros and cons? One "con" I know of is just a matter of technique: when you remove one, don't pull it away from the wall! Pull it straight down against the wall, slowly.
If nothing else, DOS old-timers will get a kick out of that domain name!
Obviously not a problem with the strips themselves, just something to bear in mind when using them.
That second one I learned from painting my first condo; painted the ceiling, gave it a week to cure; taped off to do the walls, and after finishing the walls, the ceiling paint came off with the tape! Got a pro in there and he said "if it actually did what it says on the can, I'd use it because it's way easier cleanup"
Command strips have worked absolutely fine (and also come off without a trace if need be) for relatively light loads such as paintings and other decoration, but two Command hooks could not hold up a laundry drying rack that weighs about 3 kg despite technically rated to do so.
For heavier duty stuff, there's double-sided foam tape, ideally the one for bathrooms since they're reinforced with a fiberglass (I presume) mesh and are more water resistant. We use some of those to stick an ikea shower shelving unit in the corner in our bathroom, I didn't want to put screws in the walls. Also because I don't trust this thing won't start rusting and looking tatty within a few years.
Ultimately, I think I’m done with command strips. They can work, but with hollow drywall and 1kg paintings it’s easier to use a single nail and picture hanger.
(This was in a London flat, victorian loft conversion, so the total room was like 4x5m. Sure most of you aren't so space constrained, especially Americans with your megahouses!)
The removal technique is crucial, pulling out will rip paint off the wall, pulling down will not. That was a lesson learned the hard way.
I'm just dreading ever taking my shelf down.
https://www.amsisupply.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ASO-1-...
Also don't use drywall screws for anything other than drywall. Use torx screws when putting wood to wood/studs.
It came with some big screw-in drywall anchors, but I just sucked it up and cut drywall, put in a bit of 2x4 horizontally between the two studs, patched, and screwed into that. Peace of mind was worth the extra day of dicking around with drywall.
Torx is a type of driver and head, not a type of screw. You can buy 'Torx' screws for sheet metal, drywall, wood, or just about anything else, so just looking at the head is not a good idea.
I think what you're trying to recommend are quality construction type screws like Spax or GRK with Torx heads.
However, Robertson drive is a tapered square, which means the bit will lock into the screw with friction, and it can take quite a lot of force to separate them. To illustrate my point, I can put a Robertson screw on a drill, then hold onto the screw and swing the drill around without it falling.
The two have their own pros and cons though. Robertson definitely makes it easier to keep the screw on a bit. On the other hand, if you've ever had to work with stainless screws and a harder wood (somewhat common in quality built outdoor stuff), I'll take torx any day due to the decreased stripping risk.
Overall though both are still significant improvements over philips and slotted drives!
I've slowly been replacing the original outlets in my 70s house, and for some reason they only used slotted drive screws, for everything.
Most of the torx screws you'll find in boxes at a hardware store are deck screws anyway (at least around here), which are really good for attaching wood to wood. Good to be careful though.
But a lot of carpenters do prefer square or torx drive just to avoid the whole problem.
(although I will keep buying torx screws for the most part :D)
Having said that, that doesn't always work. I've been working on a project the last few months to add something that's missing from a bathroom, and the way the room is configured it's difficult to add something where it needs to be for ergonomic/access reasons without using anchors. To add a stud you'd have to take out quite a bit of wall in adjoining room and the whole project would start to seem excessive.
I've noticed the drywall in that area of our house, too, is really unusual, or at least I'm unfamiliar with it. It's like regular drywall but with an added layer of relatively strong plaster over the surface. It makes the anchors there more secure than what I'm used to (although I'm worried the apparent strength is deceptive).
Someone likely had the wall "floated" to either fix some wonkiness in the drywall without tearing it down, covering up something like old wallpaper, etc etc. It's a fairly common thing to do to drywall.
The takeaway from these videos in my mind is that when you're hanging something with substantial weight, you really should consider putting your screws into studs.
1. There is a pdf, which you can download here: https://www.finewoodworking.com/membership/pdf/405146/W291_C...
2. While reading this I wondered why we don't have specialized quality magazines like this in Europe? I guess that America only has two big languages (Spanish and English) whereas Europa has many. So writing any article for a wide public is impossible without an army of transistors
The one thing I noticed is that those self drilling anchors are rated for a much higher weight than those that I use. In the article they are 50+ lbs and over here 8kg, so around 15 lbs. Don't know if there's a detail I'm missing.
It's virtually impossible to hang anything heavier than a picture frame unless there's a stud at that specific location. Nothing from that review works for dynamic load, like a vacuum cleaner mount or a coat rack.
Drywall sucks. I miss my concrete walls.
For example, I tried pretty much everything from the post to attach IKEA towel rack (look up "GRUNDTAL"), and all of them started wobbling after few months of use (or abuse).
Currently it's attached with toggle anchors, and the hole is completely crumbled. Try it yourself: find a piece of drywall, attach something with toggle anchors and start twitching it different directions.
https://youtu.be/QQWIZNlf9ZE?t=480
There's also an aspect of how straightforward or finicky they are. So some designs have high risk of user error, so for the average homeowner, they end up on average with worse outcomes.
https://www.fischer-international.com/en/products/standard-f...
The one thing was a kitchen cabinet with a fold-out door that would carry all my plates and the like - 30+ kilos? Up to 50? And since it's ikea stuff, it only needed two screws at the top!
I tried plugs that look like the self-drilling anchors described in the article, they ended up taking out a big chunk of the wall, whoops. We settled on the plastic butterfly anchors (number 1 on the picture), which held up just fine - but I did live in constant fear that the wall would give in.
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/metod-suspension-rail-galvanise...
Plates and glasses can be quite expensive :((
I see the same with tile. Installers skipping waterproofing is quite common. DIY folks trying to make it look pretty so they can sell the home for top dollar, etc. It often creates a much bigger problem for the next person to deal with.
We used quality anchors as well as placing an extra horizontal wooden "beam" below the cabinets for them to rest on, to minimize any vertical load on the anchors. The beam we could easily attach to the studs.
Held up for the years we lived there, even with lots of plates and such.
I see IKEA has improved their design now, with the cabinets hanging from a metal bar of sorts, which can be mounted to the studs. Guess there's a reason for that...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hSCB8ZGGH7tlph-NuNRWa317HCV...
I turn it so the flat side is horizontal. It expands when you put the screw in and it holds quite a bit. You just push it in by hand. When your done, it will pull out and leave just a small(ish) slot. Like I said, they are hard to find, so I take them when I move and re-use them.
Or if you have young children. My 3 year olds can literally swing on our towel racks and they won't come out the wall. I've since converted everything in our house to these because things kept getting pulled out by them.
Basically you drive a curved piece of metal through the wall, as you drive it in it curves up to impact the drywall above your insertion point, and it has a hook on the end.
It works so much easier then any of the stupid anchors, and I haven't had one fail over 15 years of using them for everything.
==== Light duty ====
- Just screw to drywall (no anchor)
- cheap hammer-in anchor for concrete and hollow bricks (cheap plastic anchor and special screw with "one-way thread" that can be quickly hammered in like nail, but still can be tightened and/or (un)screwed like normal screw if needed)
==== Heavy duty ====
- Expanding bolts for concrete
- Molly bolts for drywall
==== Super heavy duty ====
- Chemical anchor in concrete or bricks
Edit: they do actually have some numbers, the last image in this photo gallery here: https://www.geefix.com/gallery/
I think this is just down to bad/amateur website design
https://www.timelyframes.com/architects/application/app-meta...
Unfortunately(?) I picked prehung doors to go in (everybody was made aware of the installation environment), so I’ve got-what-I’ve-got at this moment. Unclear if I got suckered or not. I told my vendor what I was dealing with, where I wanted end, a never any flags raised. Getting help is like pulling teeth - this all seems simple enough (though I’m not going to assume there’s nothing to know - I’m no expert) which makes it all the more frustrating.
try french cleats screwed into studs instead.