garage/workshop conversion: final questions

[John Rumm]

Screwfix ;-)

so rusting is not a problem)

Quite possibly...

You can get some that are 100% nylon as well to prevent the screw acting as a cold bridge if you want to be really anal!

Na, simple technique: get a longish Bosch multimaterial 7mm bit. Slap insulation against wall - quick squirt of expanding foam to tack in place if you want. Slap board against it. Drill right through the lot and into the wall. Take screw, and wind brown masonry plug a couple of turns onto the end. Stuff in hole, tap with hammer until only 2 - 2.5" is left sticking out, drive home with powered screwdriver of choice.

(BTW, the using the screw to tap in a wall plug is a counter intuitive technique that I did not think would work when first told about it, but it actually works very well!)

I did six screws per sheet (8x4')

See above (sorry must read further before writing!)

Have you seen a 12 gauge 5" screw before? They are "adequate" ;-)

Window a door frames don't really need much fixing - the pull on the stiles is resisted by the top/bottom of the frame. You can just fix them with expanding foam (as is commonly done on highly insulated houses where the only thing to fix to is a plastic and foam cavity closer)

Well I have a set of six shelves - floor to ceiling that also go round the corner a bit. Held up on three sets of uprights. These are all about

500mm deep. The bottom shelf has three tool boxes (electrical, network/phone, and one full of misc crap!), Jigsaw, SDS Drill, Combi Drill in cases, plus a couple of other power tools in boxes. The rest have similar levels of stuff on them!

Those were using 1.2m ish rails - so the load is spread over half the height of the ply, and that is in turn held on at least 4 screws.

If its over foil faced board I can't see it being a problem. (I painted mine with magnolia emulsion - but that was to make the workshop bright and light and not as a damp proofing measure!)

Take a small offcut and soak it. Leave it outside for a couple of days. If it turns into a de-laminated mess then its not WBP. If its still mostly in one bit it is! (note the surface can be a bit flakey on the cheap shuttering ply - but its still WBP)

[John Rumm]

> Thanks spamlet. This was exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of

I have used them a few times, and so far so good. (bought something from ebay that was supplied by them once - hence how I found them)

[Fred]

Well I never expected that.

I prefer tool station because of the free delivery on orders over ten pounds. It's not often I order the £50 required for free delivery from Screwfix. Sadly TS only go up to screws of 4 inches.

I was expecting the link to go to some exotic decking screw or something, not a "plain" quicksilver screw!

The big screw sizes seem a bit peculiar in imperial measurements: 4

1/3" and 5 1/4". I did wonder why there wasn't a 5 inch but it occurred to me that in metric these probably make more sense. I think 5 1/4 is about 130mm, which would explain that one. I haven't bothered to work out 4 1/3"

Yes, I think I've seen them in the catalogue once but how strong is nylon? I wouldn't expect plastic to be as strong as steel, is it? I know screws being cold bridges were mentioned in an old thread but really, how much heat will a 10mm screw heat suck out of the room? I am hoping not much.

I wonder why they do make them so big?

7mm seems to be a funny size. SF only sells 100mm and 150mm bits, whereas the more common 6mm and 8mm bits are available in longer lengths. Still, I suppose the 150mm would just about do the trick, unless I could use an 8mm plug with an 8mm bit.

Thanks for the tip. I never expected that.

That's what I was thinking: one in each corner and two in the middle of each long edge.

I am sure it would be easier for the manufacturer to just use one screw in both fixings. I can't really see the difference expect the frame fixing has two lugs at the end. Do they really make that much difference?

Thanks.

[Fred]

Thanks.

[Fred]

I thought it was because the damp we're keeping out is damp from outside rather than damp from inside and besides, if we had to paint the outside wall with bitumen it would look ugly! Perhaps I put it on too thickly but I got ugly runs everywhere. Is that my poor technique or is it the same for everyone?

Thanks to Andy's post I now understand why; I think I was thinking along the same lines. And in answer to Jim, I'm hoping the foil of the celotex will act as a barrier if needed (the joins are foil taped btw).

[Spamlet]

Because they are frame fixings! The idea being not that 'you hammer them in' but that you drill through the frame with it in place rather than put a rawplug in and then try to line it up after putting the frame in. The bulk of the plug lines the hole you have made in the frame, or it would not be very fixed and might wobble about.

S

[John Rumm]

>>> (galvanised, so rusting is not a problem)

In reality they will lose little of relevance. The Nylon versions are usually heavy (i.e. 16mm diameter) beasties for fitting cladding and render mesh on the outside of houses. These the significant thickness of steel and the large mesh (i.e. renderable) head may make more difference to the heat conducted.

7mm diameter is the usual recommended size to match the brown plugs. They also match the screws nicely.

(note the SF description of the screws is slightly wrong - IIRC the top of the shank is not threaded - there is a plain bit)

i.e. make sure you get this one:

" long, and not the smaller 4" one)

You could - but I found 150mm was plenty with 62mm of cladding (wood and foam).

Just be careful if using long bits on a single skin wall to not go right through!

No, me neither. Having derided the suggestion on the grounds I thought it would just drive the screw into the plug but not move the plug, I had to eat some humble pie!

Yup.

Frame fixings seem to come in a variety of types and styles. Usually their main distinguishing feature is they are long - longer than you need in this case I expect. I have not tried the hammer in type - they may well work fine.

[Jim K]

yup I'm sure you are right ;>)

Just probing Liquorice's 'understanding' .... but no reply from him ;>))

Cheers Jim K

[Fred]

I was thinking that if screwed tight the pressure of the screw head would hold the frame in place with or without a big "plug" but yes, with the long plug it would be even more secure. Thanks for the explanation.

[Fred]

Thanks. I have used those kind of fixings before but only on plasterboard. I hadn't thought to use them in this situation. I was going to just screw the rails in but it seems to me that these fixings will be much stronger than a screw, especially when the screw would have to be

[Spamlet]

YW,

As I mentioned somewhere else, I think the screw itself is just to flare the base of the plug out and anchor the frame fixing, which is really the extended plastic tube. I found that the screws themselves were not very strong, when I used these fixings to hold a gatepost to a wall, for a small gate I'd made. Thinking they needed to be tight, I used my big screwdriver, and was surprised when the head broke straight off one of the screws. The flared plastic part has held the post firm for a number of years now, none the less.

So I would say that the thing to be careful of when using this type of fixing, is not to get the screws particularly tight, but to *make sure you use the right drill to the right depth*, so that you do not have to put too much torque on the screw. It just needs to sit neatly in the flared end of the fixing: not try to push the plastic in - which can't be done, if you think about it, because the other end of the screw has fixed it in the wall, and further tightening is trying to compress the whole length of the plastic tube. Conceivably, overtightning could split the frame, if your screw was strong enough to compress the plastic: in my case I was probably lucky that the screw broke first: possibly this was a designed-in failsafe to prevent splitting.

Hope the shelves went in allright: it's nice to have everything tidy when you are working.

Mind you, shelves are always full right up, no matter what you do. In a fit of desperation for tidiness, I shelved the whole of one wall of SWMBO's office while she was away one weekend, and cleared the floor that had been piled high with boxes of files for years. The relief only lasted a few weeks, and now we only have one small cluttered footpath between the door and the pc, and can't get near the long filled shelves without mountaineering gear, and getting roped in to get over what is supposed to be the spare bed!

I'm sure you will fare better! ;-)

S

[Spamlet]

I haven't actually done exactly what you are doing. The main factor I was unsure of was how easy it would be to get the wings of the fixings to open in the insulation so that they could grip the back of the board (probably another poking job for a piece of bent coathanger wire). And the tubular portion of the fixing shouldn't be so long that the wings didn't pull up against the board.

The pointy pits are to stop the fixing rotating as you tighten. Yours will be hidden behind the rails, so. if your board is too hard for them to dig in neatly, it shouldn't really matter, but you could file the points or flatten them or even help them in with small holes made with a bradawl or similar. As I said. the most important thing is to get the holes in exactly the right places. Do your top fixing first and hang the rail on it temporarily, while you pilot drill through the rest of the mounting holes.

A futher point to note - especially if you have to join two rails end to end - is to keep an eye on the slot spacing. They don't always cut the rails in the same place on each rail, and sod's law tends to find you want to put a bracket across just the point where the spacing changes!

Let's hope there will still be room for you inside it, when it's all done! You've got the work bench to fix in next, and it can be fiddly even fixing a vice in a place you can actually put something in it and not knock all the stuff off you new shelves at the same time!

You'll want lots of lights and plug sockets around the bench too, so you don't have shadows in all the wrong places. Hope you put all your cables in before you boarded!

I have to say though, that I've tended to find myself mostly working in the garage in the summer, with the sweat dripping off me, so you might want to hold back on insulating the ceiling, until you see how you get on with your new walls.

It's good to be appreciated.

Cheers, S