Hi,
I'd like to put up some shelves onto a plasterboard wall. I know the technique is supposed to be that you find the studs and screw into those but...
I bought a Zircon stud detector, I got the impression from posts here that they were the only brand that worked well, but IMHO it is useless. However our walls are papered and they have a pattern embossed in them, and I wonder whether the fact that they are not smooth is confusing the device? Do you think so?
The house is a 1970s build and once upon a time it seemed a good idea to take a wall apart in another bedroom (though I can't think why now!). That wall was 8' x 8' so it was covered by just two sheets. these were supported by just three studs: one at each end and one in the middle, where the two sheets joined. There were NO studs at 60cm or 40cm spacing's and NO noggins between them.
The second wall in that room was about 12' x 8' and was of a similar construction: the sheets were only supported along their edges and the studs were quite thin: only about an inch and a half wide.
This doesn't seem much to me but OTOH the walls had remained up for thirty years.
My worry is that the room I wish to shelve, is another bedroom and I worry that if one bedroom's walls were like this, won't this rooms walls be the same?
This room where I want to do the shelving is over the stairs, so would the wall be better supported there?
I worry that if the wall is that badly put together there will not be enough studs to screw into.
What would be the best way to proceed? Strip the wallpaper to see if the detector works? Take the wall apart to see for myself, and if necessary reinforce it? Or could I just cheat and somehow fix a sheet of plywood to the wall and screw the shelves into that? But doesn't that solve one problem and create another because I would then have to find some way to anchor the board to the wall?
Were all houses in he 1970s built like this? Have the regulations got much stricter since then or was my house built by cowboys?!
TIA