60kg hanging 26" from the wall - what anchor to use :-)

[Antix]

Hi, I'm about to mount a 30Kg Arm on a brick wall with a 34Kg Plasma screen hanging off the end of it. The arm can extend to 26" so clearly there's going to be enough torque to open up a new door between my neighbour and I (it is a cavity wall so no danger of me drilling through next doors family portrait)

I'm bit unsure about which fixing to use. Shield anchors or Sleeve anchors look like they'll do the job but one concern I have is putting too many of those in might cause the brick to disintegrate. It's an

1860 build with stone outer wall...I'm pretty damm sure it'll be brick behind the plaster on the inner wall as other walls have been - will be checking that this week..)

Anyone have any thoughts on the best type and size for this sort of job ? Theoretically I can get 7 bolts on the top edge and 7 on the bottom but after drilling those out, I doubt there'll be much Brick left to anchor into ! (the mount hols are about 4.25" apart).

[EricP]

are going to put the thing to ascertain the exact construction of it.

I have recently seen one of those nose dive when the enthusiastic demonstrator put too much pressure on the top of the telly to show how nicely it swings around!

If the wall is a nice brick one, don't go for overkill on the bolts.

[Antix]

Cheers Eric, yup I think i'll remove all the plaster around the area I'm intending to mount to try to pinpoint the centre of the bricks for a start (and avoid any holes ending up in the mortar or 2mm from the edge of a brick). Then re-render it to provide a more solid plaster layer behind the plasma mount (the old plaster would probably crack under the pressue or tightening up the bolts anyway)

what would be overdoing it ? :-) the local hardware guy said 2-3 shield anchors (3-4" long with a 1/2inch diam shield by the looks of what he picked up) top and bottom would be more than enough...I'm thinking more along the lines of 40ft wall ties through the wall, through next doors downstairs rooms and capped off with a decorative bolt on the outside of their wall :-)

thanks. Ant.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Omigawd.

I have to say my inclination would be to remove all the plaster from the wall, bolt the telly stand to a plate of 1/8" steel, and use about 20 expansion bolts from that to the brickwork, spread over several bricks, espcially near the top where all the 'pull' will be..with a bit of metal mesh trapped behind said bolts, and render over the lot before re-skimming.

[EricP]

I would do something along those lines but looking at a place in the centre of the bracket that would not show or requiring much making up. The best scenario is to find a good solid wall with hard bricks behind a thin layer of plaster. The worst is to find a load of soft rubble s**te.

LOL. I would use two at the bottom and three at the top, spaced as widely apart as possible. The top ones are the important ones as they will be under tension, and should be firmly gripping the centre of a brick each.

When you consider the value of the bracket and telly, a bit of time and few quid fixing it up will be worth it.

Best of luck. :)

[Andy Hall]

For this one, I'd use resin injection fixings.

e.g.

are much better than sleeve anchors if the quality of the brickwork is uncertain (e.g. could be soft).

I recently used some for supporting a frame for a wall mounted wc pan where the wall is breeze block. Very solid result.

[Ian Stirling]

I'd also consider chasing all the way up and down the wall, and putting in a little bit of steel fixed at the top and bottom.

[Antix]

yeah, saw those on screwfix but don't quite understand how you use them...There's the resin, you pump that in the hole, but what 'fixing' do you use ? Those resin studs worry me...you just push them in and hope the resin grabs the thread of the stud ? how do you know if the brick hasn't soaked up all the resin too quickly to have anything left to grip the stud by the time you get it in the hole ?

maybe I'm missing something very basic here :-)

Ant.

[Clive George]

The resin is more like Araldite than water - the bricks won't soak it up in the way you're thinking. (Consider these questions: How do walls get built? Don't the bricks soak up all the cement?)

cheers, clive

[Roger Mills]

- which screw straight into the bricks without using any plugs. You have to drill the right size hole - which varies a bit depending on the material.

[Antix]

Thanks Roger, what advantage (in terms of load capacity) would a masonry screw have over some sort of expanding bolt ? My asumption is that something I stick in the hole that then expands in a sort of conical fashion will be more tricky to pull out than something that relies on a thread (I'm worried the thread will just cut through the brick under load)..

Ant.

[John]

bit tongue in cheek and entirely up to you whether you take any notice or not - probably best not to :o)

It just strikes me that some of the replies you've received up to now are maybe a bit OTT. Don't forget that before lovely plasma tellys, the good old CRT telly was a bit of a heavy beast in its day. Some of the replies have suggested knocking plaster out, putting steel plates in, and all sorts of things.

This TV bracket

is rated to carry 60Kg and, if I remember correctly, is fixed by six 3-inch No.10s (or maybe it's No.12s) ordinary woodscrews and has been up there for

15 years.

John. PS it's not usually that dusty - honest :o) We've got workmen in at the mo. so I get to clean up later.

[.]

what diameter of which type of fixing does the manual recommend using ?

.. 5/16th so 8mm .. go to 10mm for safety and fit four of these

described in the manual. make sure you use a quality drill to avoid reaming the holes out - let the drill do the work and buy a new masonry drill bit - pirhana from B&D are ok and give a clean cut - might be worth chiseling a bit of plaster off to see where your bricks are in relation to the mortar and mark up roughly where the centre of the bricks are. don't overtighten the bolts.

[.]

agreed.

[Andy Hall]

The hole is drilled generally 2mm larger than a threaded stud which will be used as the fixing.

The procedure is to drill the holes, thoroughly clean them with a vacuum and inject some resin. One of them is a resin/mortar mix which is a two part material in a dispenser. There is a special nozzle with a spiral piece of plastic inside which mixes the components as you inject.

You then insert the studs with a gentle twisting motion making sure that some resin is forced out of the hole as you do so as to ensure that the hole is filled properly.

The resin cures in a few hours but is fully load bearing in 24hrs.

It is quite viscous and will not soak excessively into bricks.

If you had hollow bricks, there are special sleeves that you can get for the studs to retain the resin close to the stud, but on an 1860 house this is unlikely.

[Staffbull]

I like the calibrated dvd holders myself, carefully disgused as 2 X 1 :-), where would we get without the old 2 X 1 ?

[John]

Brilliant stuff innit? :o) It's there to raise the ventilation holes of the DVD recorder above the sides of the bracket.

John.

[Newshound]

Surely it entirely depends on how confident you are in the properties of the bricks. You've got about 50 kg horizontal force trying to pull the top ones straight out. A single one inch number six into reasonable softwood would do the job. But I've seen meaty frame fixings loosened in good blockwork by variable forces. What's the telly worth! FWIW I think I would either go for resin, or find a way of lengthening the vertical base (e.g. a sheet of 18 mm ply).

[Andy Hall]

Exactly. Given that this is an old house with unknown bricks and assuming that the OP doesn't want to rip off the plaster to look, the first clue will be when the first large hole is drilled.

Exactly again. I can't believe that there is a discussion over the difference in cost of a few pounds when the equipment involved is presumably of value high hundreds to low thousands.

Given those two scenarios, one should go for the fixing type that is most likely to be successful and least likely to give under load. In that respect, plug fixings and sleeve anchors are somewhat questionable if the brick proves to be soft - they can just pull out. Equally, sleeve anchors can split bricks when tightened and the tolerance with getting the holes just right is not large. In addition, there is really no way to inspect the result of drilling without cutting away the plaster.

With all of that in mind, resin fixings are the obvious choice. They are also the most expensive, but considering the consequences of the lot coming off of the wall, this is not something that should be bodged and skimped.

[John]

The point I'm making is nothing to do with cost or labour involved or anything like that. I'm just saying that my 15-year old TV bracket is rated to carry up to and including 60Kg and it came supplied with the 6 screws and plugs to do the job, already in the box - that's what the manufacturers of the bracket supplied so I used them and it's worked for me.

John.