Fixing into breeze block/cinder bock wall

[Chris Bartram]

I've been tasked by my other half to try to repair a handrail up the stairs at my mother-in-laws. The house is early 60s, ex-council, and some(?) internal walls are breeze block. This includes where the rail is fixed, and over time, the fixing at the top, secured with standard wall plugs, has worked loose. It's tightened up OK once, but the holes in the block the fixings are in are getting crumbly, the holes have opened out, it's not just a quick twist with a screwdriver.

I could probably bodge some bigger plugs in the holes, but I reckon that would probably fail again.

What's the best approach? Ideally, I'd like to not have to move the whole rail. Is there any way to stabilize and pack the holes that's likely to last decent time and the strain of people using the rail for support?

Is there a resin product that could do this, or is that being optimistic?

Thanks

Chris

[Harry Bloomfield]

Chris Bartram was thinking very hard :

Open the hole up to 1/2 / 3/8 inch and fill it with car body filler. Before it sets too much, screw in you well greased screw. Once set, you should be able to take the screw out then fix the towel rail as normal. If it is breeze, you can probably open the hole out, with nothing more than a screwdriver. Try to push the filler as deep as you can into the hole.

[Peter Parry]

Clean the hole (do not blow in it unless you really want a grey face and un working eyes). Have a suitable plastic plug to hand. Fill hole with hot melt glue, press in plug - leave until cold.

[Tim Watts]

From personal experience with celcon blocks (pretty much as fliddy as breeze) - resin will work well if you do it by the book:

Drill hole 3" into 4" wall

Blow hole 99% clear (tube right into hole and puff it with a bike pump or similar - *important, do not skip this step*

Then just use a bit of Fischer vinylester resin or similar, and shove stud or female resin sleeve in depending on what's preferred.

I have a bathroom basin hanging off 4 studs on a celcon block wall with the full lever force of no pedestal

[Tim Watts]

PS - I see some other suggestions below. All good ideas, but I will say you can get small cartridges of proper resin for little over a fiver these days - so why ponce about when you can do it properly and know it will work :)

[tabbypurr]

Lots have mentioned resin, but IRL you can do it with ordinary polyfilla. T he gotcha is you need a much larger contact area with lightweight blocks, s o need to make the hole over an inch across, then fill, let set, drill & pl ug as normal. And use a deeeep fixing, not just one plug.

Of course there are always other ways too.

NT

[newshound]

+1. Lightweight blocks are a very different animal to real Breeze blocks, or even to medium weight concrete blocks, especially for tensile loads. You really do need an idea of which type of block you have.