As you know, I have been taking inspiration from previous posts here and I have:
painted my brick garage with bitumen paint put celotex against the walls and finally I am fixing plywood to protect the celotex from knocks and to give me something to fit shelves to.
One poster said that he had screwed through the plywood into the wall with long (4 inch?) screws and wall plugs. I was thinking of using hammer fixings, which are more or less the same thing aren't they: a big screw in a plastic plug. Do you think these will be strong enough. I don't want the plywood to fall in once I have loaded my shelves! Is it worth upgrading to through bolts or something meatier?
When I was pricing the plywood a couple of timber merchants raised their eyebrows when I said I would screw the shelves into the wood. I am sure that's what others here have done. Surely they don't need long screws into the wall as well?
Finally, I've quickly rollered some paint onto all sides and edges of the plywood to keep any water out. I only did one coat because I was eager to get on with the job. Do you think that will be sufficient or should I have given it a second coat to completely seal it?
Depends how thick the ply, how heavy the shelves, what sort of brackets, how many screws,... It works for me with 18mm ply and light cupboards/shelves.
Exactly what brackets and screws do you propose into what thickness of plywood? I can't see that you are going to be able to support any significant load in this way.
Probably - although they have more "plug" than you need (you only need the plug on the end of the screw in the masonry. The 2.5" of screw through wood and insulation does not need to be in a plug.
Not really. You can always screw critical shelves to the masonry as well with the same long screws. For my heavy shelving (floor to ceiling, that carries all the tools in cases and tool boxes etc) I used spur type metal rails that sit on the floor and are fixed through the cladding to the masonry. That way there is no real load on the cladding.
However, for all the others I used similar spur rails - but just fixed to the cladding, and not full height. There is no sign of it causing a problem.
I have done both - as above.
One will be adequate I would have thought. Especially if its WBP ply - its not really susceptible to water ingress.
How thick is the plywood, and how is it held to the wall?
I would solve both problems by using this excellent 'U' section shelfing supports:
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?productId=56901&imageNo=null&ts=90976They are cheap and strong and very effective, and the load is taken on all the screws instead of just on a per shelf basis. I have completely covered our 'office' room walls, to take row after row of box files, using this stuff, though the plaster is so soft it often seems more like cake icing!
You could anchor them to your ply with this sort of thing:
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so long as you chose the appropriate sizes, both the ply and the shelfing would be strengthened. If it is decently thick ply you would be laughing. (The hard part I found was getting wide enough wood for the shelves themselves: did a lot of skip scavenging and thicknessing, but got there in the end.)
S
If it is something like 20mm 25mm 30mm then look up "Rigifix" on Ebay. They are not cheap at about =A30.80-1.00 each, but they do work ok.
Basically you have a long wallplug tube, then a steel sleeve which you allen-key screw into the tube, then a M6 (or M8) metric machine screw which screws into the sleeve. They work well, a pity they are not of German Fischer quality - but then they are ok and not priced like Fischer!
Because it's a wall, not a roof, and also because it's not a habitable space.
Insulation goes on the warm side when you have damp humans breathing out in there. My small workshop walls are poor quality permeable blockwork and there's not much heavy breathing going on inside. The bitumen & rubber emulsion is on the walls to keep damp in the walls from evaporating inwards, more than it is to be a vapour barrier from the inside into the insulation. I also used polystyrene rather than rockwool to avoid any problems I might have.
The big workshop roof will be rockwool, and that will have a vapour barrier on the warm side, with a vented space on the cold side.
Crickey, I don't think I've ever seen any over 4 inches. Where did you get those? Do they need to be stainless to prevent rusting or will they be dry enough that a cheaper variety might do?
I thought a hammer fixing would simplify things as I would drill a hole in the wood and just push the fixing through. If I used separate plugs and screws, I would have to move the wood and insulation after drilling to get to the holes to plug them and that would be a hassle. I did wonder whether I could push the plugs through in situ using a wire coat hanger or something similar but that sounds like it might be more trouble than it's worth. What did you do?
I have used hammer fixings with great success before. I've even used frame fixings when I bought the wrong ones by mistake and didn't notice ;)
They say hammer fixings use stronger screws to withstand the hammering but the frame fixings didn't seem to mind! I wonder whether the screws are really that different? They don't look it.
That said, this time I have had a lot of trouble with hammer fixings bending when hammered. I wonder if I would have had more success if I had screwed them in? I guess that's what you are supposed to do with the frame fixings?
I guess they must be pretty strong since they are used to hold windows and door frames. If a window if glazed or a heavy door is hung both of these must take quite a weight, or perhaps they don't? Perhaps the window sill and the floor take some of the weight, reducing the load on the fixing?
Yes, I was thinking of using the same type of rails but I hadn't realised you screwed through the board into the wall. I thought they just went into the wood. I'm not expecting anything particularly heavy but lots of little weights will add up.
That's reassuring, thanks.
Oh. perhaps I made more work for myself then. Still it's better to have done too much rather than not enough. I only used a primer to seal the surface and used a roller for speed. I noticed one or two patches on one or two panels where the coverage didn't seem complete. I thought I had applied it too thinly. I was worried this would need a recoat but it seems it may be ok after all then.
I was told it was wbp but there was no marking on it to say so. No markings at all. I did a "plywood" post about it but its an orphan post at the moment waiting for a reply, lol.
With 18mm it should be very sound indeed. Make sure the tube part of the fixing is long enough for the wings to open when you tighten the screw, and make sure to get the holes in the right place.
In my, very soft, wall, I make sure the top screw is a long one just in case.
The screws aren't very strong. I used them to hold a gate post to a wall and the screws broke off in the final tightening. The plastic sleeve still holds the gate post in place though, and it's now been up for a number of years.
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