My garage door frame is loose, presumably because the frame fixings have become loose in the incredibly soft "breezeblock" walls. I've tried tightening them up, without effect, so I was going to put some more in. What do I need to buy?
I don't particularly like frame fixings, although I realise that they are widely used to good effect in the trade.
When you say "incredibly soft breezeblock" that sounds rather like Thermalite, and it's not so easy to get firm fixings into this, especially if they see jiggling loads or it's not too easy to drill the holes neatly.
When you have problems like this with a dodgy masonry base, one answer is to use the longest fixings available. So if you do use frame fixings, get long ones. Another option might be Multi Monti screws which are very secure *as long as you get the pilot hole size correct*. Another might be resin anchors.
Wooden or metal frame? Another option to stiffen things up might be to bed the frame to the wall on gripfill or similar before re-fitting screws. Obviously, you need to be able to lift the frame sufficiently clear to inject.
Chemical anchors. If the walls are that friable then drill more holes will possibly give crumbly results. It is vital to blow out all the dust and then inject the resin so that adheres to the sides of void not a bundle of dust.
Allow the resin to harden for at least a few hours or overnight before tightening the fixings.
A lot of epoxy I'd suggest. No wonder they are called Breeze blocks as they are constructed of breeze, ie nothing. Brian
I'd consider drilling a 10mm hole through frame and wall. Remove dust (blow out with a tube or straw).
Pump wall full of Screwfix no nonsense resin fixing gunk, and also pump the frame half full. Stick in M8 stud so it fills both holes depthwise.
That won't fall off :)
+1
No, *genuine* breeze blocks are very tough bastards made out of some sort of clinker. From the days when we had lots of nasty heavy industry.
Thermalite are, I believe, made from PFA (pulverised fuel ash) from coal fired power stations. Little hollow glass spheres.
So presumably this is going to become increasingly rare.
Oops!
Ours were made from the local gas works clinker.
That seems plausible come to think of it. I still remember when every town of any size had a gasworks.
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