Why are fixings supplied with things always rubbish?

[Gareth]

I've just been installed a safety gate. Overall it's quite reasonable quality but the wall plugs supplied were completely useless - they just span round in the hole when I tried to do the screws up. In the end I threw them away and used some B&Q own brand plugs.

I've often found this with anything which includes the fixings. If they can't spend a few fractions of a penny more and include decent wall plugs I would prefer it if they didn't include them and said so on the box. That way at least you wouldn't need to make another trip just to buy wall plugs (okay, I have a good stock of wall plugs and didn't actually need to go out again but they didn't know that).

Anyone else found this problem?

Gareth

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Absolutely. The screws are also usually so short they'd only work on brick when the thing is most likely to go on a plastered wall.

[Bolted]

On Jul 22, 10:40=A0pm, Gareth wrote:>

Almost everyone has found the problem I'd guess, and most reasonably competent people probably recognise it as well.

I just chuck them away by routine. It sounds like you have enough experience now to learn to do the same.

[The Medway Handyman]

Arrrrggghhh!

Don't get me started!

Rule Number 1; Remove any screws & plugs supplied & bin them immediately.

You are so, so, so, so right!

And why do they use Phillips screws? And why do they make them from recycled cheese?

Only every piggin day.

[The Medway Handyman]

I would really, really like to set up something like 'The Campaign for Clear English' but titled 'The Campaign for Decent Screws & Plugs'.

Anyone wanna help?

[Owain]

I have to agree the screws nowadays don't seem as good as the screws when I was younger.

Wall, bath, or thirteen amp?

Owain

[John Rumm]

Yup. Almost always start by ignoring any included fixings unless there is something particularly special about them. At least with you own, you know the screwdriver bit fits them well, and the plugs etc perform ok under load.

[PeterC]

Almost always, typically 30mm screws to go through 5mm of fitting, 12mm of plaster and then a tapered point to tickle the brick (spell checkers don't cover that!). The stainless steel towel rail and shelf from Aldi actually are OK: about

40mm screws, so about 35+ in the wall.

[Tim Lamb]

Wall plugs may have worked well with traditional tapered screws. The modern stuff seems designed to *cut* into the work and with parallel thread doesn't expand the plug properly.

regards

[Adrian C]

Wasn't that one of the founding principles of 'The News of the World'?

[Huge]

Absolutely. Tiny little screws made of cheese is the usual problem.

[Huge]

Four candles.

[stuart noble]

IME plugs need to be a tighter fit these days. I find I'm using 5mm or

5.5mm masonry drills and tapping the plugs in with a hammer instead of pushing them in by hand.

[The Medway Handyman]

I shall once again sing the praises of Rawlplug 'Uno' plugs.

6mm bit on the red ones - you nearly always have to tap them in. Good fix first time into almost anything.

[The Medway Handyman]

I use Quicksilver for plugs, Turbogold for everything else. I agree, Turbogold do chew up plugs & don't expand them enough.

[Gareth]

Yes

[NT]

Its just about inversal. I was shocked once - only once - when I found fixings that were not only man enough, but truly OTT, on a radiator I bought.

Unused mounting screws can go into a box, occasionally they prove very useful.

NT

[Tim Watts]

Yep - all supplied plugs and very often the screws go in the bin and out come the Fischer or Uno plugs...

It's not even like Fischer or Uno cost much - especially in massive quantities...

Given the range of surfaces that people *might* have to fix to, it would be better to include one of the Fischer combination plugs that work in a variety of hollow and non hollow surfaces - eg:

$MART-HK-$MKAT-HK-$MPG-G1-$MZG-F451&ekat=$EKAT-HK-EN9p each at retail prices, probably 1/2 to 1/3 at bulk buy of 1000's

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Thinking on, the only two things I can remember being supplied with decent fixings were a Viessmann boiler (and so it should at the price) and a wall mount bracket for an LCD TV.

[Adrian C]

I recently purchased a cheapo TV wall bracket from Amazon, this one

Designer Habitat Wall Tilt Bracket for 32 - 55 inch LCD Plasma TV - Black £7.49 + £8.89 shipping

worth it for the dosh and came with an impressive set of screws!

._AA300_.jpgand a lot of people moaning (see Amazon listing comments) about having been told to use a larger drill bit than what was actually necessary.