I am about to fit kitchen wall cupboards and an extractor hood to a wall in my kitchen. However this wall is made from layers of plasterboard only. It is not a stud wall.
I have been told I should glue plywood over the plasterboard and hang the cupboards on that. Does anyone know if this is a good idea and will be strong enough?
Thanks
John
If you have a solid layer between you and the wall just use screws long enough to give an inch or more purchase. If there is a gap, use some means of spreading the weight. You could also chisel out between the board and the brick and put an insert there.
Unfortunately there isn't anything too solid in this wall. Just three layers of plasterboard and on the other side of this is a tiled bathroom. There is no brick to fix anything to.
Do you think the plywood isnt workable?
Cheers
Build a stud wall between Kitchen and bathroom and hang the cupboards on solid timber.
PMSL glue plywood to PB and then hang cupboards. lol
Who told you this? hands John a gun.
What do you mean by layers? ie is there a double layer of PB? if just a single skin then the PB will not be far away from the wall so longer screws and bigger rawl plugs will suffice.
So whats the PB affixed to? cant be thin air. ;-)
Oh gawd! - it's not one of those is it? - is the rest of the house the same?
For anyone not familiar with this (hideous) method of wall construction, it's simply several layers of plasterboard (but with more rigidity - possibly containing cement) stood upright and skimmed - that's it, no timber, insulation, adhesive or anything else...why they allowed these methods I don't know, but I'll wager it's an ex council property, built circa 1968 - 75
Do you mean to use longer screws to screw into a brick wall? If so there is no brick in this wall, just three sheets of plasterboard.
Forget hanging kitchen cupboards on plasterboard, it wont stand a chance. Either fit upright timbers so the weight rests on the floor or glue ply on WITH secure fixings top and bottom would work. Gluing it without fixing it top and bottom would mean the weight would be on the PB wall, which will never run. The idea is to fix it to ceiling joists and floor so those take the weight.
NT
This was being done in 1988 - my then new house has all the upstairs rooms made in this way. (private estate of about 40 houses). A strip of timber on the floor - one on the ceiling then a panel nailed to it. Some infill dabbed and dobbed onto the back and then another sheet to form the other side of the wall.
Had no problems - but not good for sound absorbsion. I have an old kitchen wall cupboard on the wall in my study but wouldn't want to risk loading it to the extent that a kitchen one would be loaded.
The person who told you that is an idiot. It would have to be very thick plywood covering the whole wall from floor to ceiling, and even then without any means of securely fixing the plywood to either wall timber or masonry it would be unsafe. Gluing the plywood to plasterboard would not be safe. I think you need a new stud partition wall with extra noggins to support the weight of wall cupboards and contents.
Its a pretty good idea, but I am a bit confused as to what the plasterboard itself is screwed to, if not studs.
What I have done before, is to rip the wall down - if its one or tow unsupported sheets of plasterboard it can;t be huge - and replace with MDF. 15mm is good, and apart from its propensity to shrink slightly and crack any filled seams, makes an excellent wall for hanging stuff off, or tiling, and paints with emulsion beautifully.
That is where you are wrong.
Plasterbard in compression is pretty strong - as long as the LOCAL forces don't exceed a certain amount it will hold a heck of a lot of weight. Just tiling and the using plugs in the tiles - so a tile spreads the load via the cement - allows a heavy shelf to be attached - done that in bathrooms.
The key is to put a string plate to take the actual screw, and then attach the plate over a wide area with glue or cement.
In this guts case, I would make up squares of ply or MDF to fit inside the cupboard rears, and contact the lip of the top surface, and glue them on with probably car body filler, though mo more nails is a possibility.
Either fit upright timbers so the weight rests on the floor or
Nah. Its not a 40 ton truck..its a cupboard.
The other trick is to put the units in and the worktop, and then use MDF from that to the ceiling, glued on again, but at least its resting on the worktop.
I have a similar wall in my kitchen, a Grproc laminated partition. It takes less space up than a stud wall, and I have successfully had two lots of heavily loaded kitchen cupboards on it. The first ones had timber inserts in the original middle skin of plasterboard to which to be attached. The later ones had different attachment points, so I attached an L shaped piece of angle iron (part of a piece of 'bed iron') to the wall using the existing timbers, and bolted the new cupboard brackets to that. These have been up, heavily loaded, for about 18 years without any signs of problems.
I've had dried porridge thats stronger than any PB I've used. PB cant even hold a coathook on a loadspreading toggle, and thats 12mm stuff.
Well, you might get away with it if its lightly loaded and you dont have kids/idiots in the house, but its not something I'd do. I'd sooner give the wall something with some strength and do it so it stays there safely, either a frame or some fixed sheet. I'm not the kind of person that would fix a bathroom sink to PB either.
NT
Sounds fine to me Johnny, over doing it if anything. I remember during WWII that most of the UK was held together using just string and Sellotape. Plasterboard would have been a luxury then.
Sounds fine to me Johnny, over doing it if anything. I remember during WWII that most of the UK was held together using just string and Sellotape. Plasterboard would have been a luxury then.
Sounds fine to me Johnny, over doing it if anything. I remember during WWII that most of the UK was held together using just string and Sellotape. Plasterboard would have been a luxury then.
Peter C wrote:
hi guys, i was here to post my own request when ii stumbled on this you guy's are funny!! ha ha
any way i have hung several kitchen cupboards on plaster board walls in the past. no trouble & with kids wanting to climb them to get to the biscuits on the top shelf. i would say it is down to how secure you feel the plasterboard is. did it have kitchen cupboards on it before? if it did then get on with it. if not inspect for cracks or movement forward or back give it a few bangs with the ball of your hand or push it. give it the thumbs up and away you go. all the diy stores have these aly type screw in plugs whereby you screw them in after marking the site for the bracket no drills needed as they are self tapping/drilling about 1 1/2" long. you then put your cupboard or your mounting up to this and screw in the screw that comes with it. you could also use plasic rawlplugs. just make sure when you drill a hole it's one hole only, meaning "damn it' a quarter of an inch out let me just drill it again" NO. you will have problems if you do. also inspect the proposed height of the cupboards and where the mounts are going make sure you don't have a line of past mounting screw holes from previous cupboards unless the new ones are going in exactly the same place as in size (400 for a 400) & the mounts are the same all should be ok. don't hang on the cupboard after fitting to say you would just test it, because if it comes down with you under it it is damn heavy even a 400 unit. would you like some help putting them up? sorry for the lenght of the reply i just wanted to be sure i didn't leave a gap.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.