How to hang a punchbag

[Alec]

My son has just bought a punchbag and wants me to hang it from the ceiling. It's quite heavy (around 25kg) and a foot in diameter and 4 ft tall. It comes with four pieces of 1' webbing attached to the top terminating in a metal D ring around 2" diameter. Ceiling of his downstairs room is around 10 ft high and made of lath-and-plaster, and joists, accessible by listing floorboards above. What would be the least complicated way of hanging it without bringing the ceiling down or disturbing the plaster? TIA

Alec

[GB]

Find a convenient joist and screw a large hook into it from downstairs room? Try to get a hook with a closed eye.

You'll presumably need a length of rope to hang the metal D ring from if the ceiling is ten feet high. Otherwise, you son will only be able to practise shots at head height! (You did mean 1' webbing, did you? Not 1'' wide perhaps rather longer than a foot long. Now I'm confused.)

Geoff

[Alec]

Thanks. Yes, the webbing is about 1.5 inch wide and about a foot long, and will need a rope about 3 ft long to attach to the ceiling hooks. Are ceiling and joists (Edwardian construction) meant to take the weight and pounding without damage?

Alec

[geoff]

In message , Alec writes

Well apart from other postings about strong joists etc (and there's probably quite a bit of sideways force if it's for karate), make sure that the height is adjustable

[BigWallop]

Two carbine hooks, a piece of chain and a threaded eye hook will let adjust the height to suit your son growing up.

[Dazed]

Just wondering, have you had a look inside it at all?

I fancied getting one, but after seeing a thing on Watchdog, where one person found theirs was full of nappies, another full of curtains, and one found a letter of complaint from another customer about what they use to fill the bags - it put me off a little!

[GB]

Alec

I assume from what you are saying that your son is fairly beefy - not a ten-year-old?

The answer must be that no Edwardian house is built to take Mike Tyson beating the shit out of it. The house won't collapse but the plaster may well crack, etc.

In that case it might be sensible to spread the load across several joists. I think that is not so much to do with the weight as to do with the twisting force on the joist, especially as you don't want to loosen the plaster. I have seen these things fixed to the ceiling with a large piece of thick plywood say 6 feet square (depends on your joist spacing) screwed into each of the joists it spans.

I have no idea if that is strictly necessary. If you have nice mouldings on the ceiling, I would strongly suggest some reinforcement as a preventitive measure.

Geoff

[Dee]

You can hang from the wall. Look up "folding bracket" on google and you'll find a number of fitness and boxing suppliers shops selling them

AndyP

[DKSanders]

I used a large 'Eye' bolt with a screw threaded stem and simply screwed this into a joist at the desired position (or at least as near to it as I could find a joist). Used a piece of chain from the local hardware store to get the height right.

[Marcus Fox]

My brother drilled through the ceiling joist from the loft into his room. His punchbag is 6ft by 1ft diameter. He bought bolts long enough from the local hardware store, with washers and nuts to fit. However, when he punches it, it shakes the ceiling and upstairs lath/plaster walls a bit, but my fish don't seem to be bothered by it.

Marcus