IKEA kitchen wall cabinet hanging on plaster wall without stud

[coder]

Hi,

Advice appreciated for the following task:

I'm installing an IKEA kitchen. One of the walls which will hold some wall cabinets is plaster with studs. The IKEA wall cabinets each have

2 mounting brackets in fixed locations ('fixed' except for very minor adjustment). Since the wall studs are not positioned so as to allow each of the cabinet brackets to be screwed to a stud, what is the best way to achieve a strong fixing? These are fairly heavy cabinets, even before loading.

Do I need battens or some kind of special fixing behind the units to spread the load across the studs?

Thanks in advance, Bill

[Dave Liquorice]

You could try the metal "hollow wall anchors", the type with a machine screw that pulls the back end of the plug in and spreads out a multi-fingered metal flower on to the back of the plasterboard.

How thick is the plaster board, 9.5mm might bow over time under the load, though most load from a wall cupboard is vertical rather than a horizontal pull.

[Ed Sirett]

I may be a bit over cautious but these are are highly loaded fixings (more so that say a radiator). Whilst the cabinets in a run can help each other out they only have two top corner fixings per box. I would suggest that you put a peice of 2x2 right the way across the top of the run and anchor that to the studs with 80mm-100mm screws. Fit the boxes with the normal fixings e.g Nailex or even just wall plugs. ( this gives a bit of pull to keep the boxes back to the wall. The drill up through the roof of each box at about 150mm spacing, countersink lightly and screw up into the batten with 50mm screws. If you really want to carry on in the spirit of IKEA you can put little plastic domes on the screw heads. 8-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd *really* not trust those on their own. A wall cupboard can be very heavily loaded - it's the convenient place to store crockery. And tinned food.

I'd carefully cut away the plasterboard and let in a wood batten flush - preferably decent plywood.

[coder]

Many thanks for the suggestions.

Looks like a pair of battens is in order, one underneath to take some of the weight of the units, and one set at the height of the unit brackets. I may still use anchor fittings on the upper batten.

It is interesting to me that so many of these 'diy' cabinets use fixed position brackets when partition walls and plaster board are so common

- the odds of finding a stud are not good... I'm also surprised that there seem to be no specific products available to suit this task (perhaps a long metal bracket with movable hooks for modular cabinets). Still I may fashion my own!

Thanks again.

[Dave Liquorice]

Think of the vector for the load, most will be straight down, not a great deal is pull.

True, in the box, the brackets I've seen have 3 holes per bracket so 6 fixings to the substrate.

I think I'd rather "sit" the cupboards on a batten rather than try and hang them, why fight gravity? You're not going to see a 1 x 3/4" or so batten underneath the cupboards. Those little 2 screw angle brackets will stop the cupboard pulling forward and off the batten and any decent PB fixing will hold the top in.

[Dave Liquorice]

The plaster board will fail first, of all the PB fixings I've used these are the only ones that I have never had fail or the PB come to that. I didn't use them on the cupboards hung on PB here as there wasn't the clearance between the PB and the rubble stone wall. I used the plastic "two petal" toggle type. Cupboards are still up PB hasn't distorted but then these cupboards aren't heavly loaded, just pots and pans.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've certainly seem ones where they have a full length metal strip that the adjustable fixing brackets clip into. You could drill holes anywhere along it to line up with the studs. Dunno the make, though.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I had four wall cupboards fixed to a brick wall pull out. They were rather full of heavy stuff. I replaced them with spur shelving and simply added ends and doors. They're definitely not going anywhere...

[Ed Sirett]

No the two little holes fix the bracket to the cabinet sides with over sized grub screws. The big hole at the back is for the single fixing to the wall and has a square washer betwen your screw and their bracket.

Because the 2x2 would be down at pelmet level and get int the way of the under cupboard lights (?) and you would not be able to use a single peice of timber for as you would over an fan bridge cupboard.

You're not going to see a 1 x 3/4" or so

Yes, I guess that would work.

[Dave Liquorice]

Ah sounds like an Ikea cost cutting excercise... The in box assembly for the units I have used just has a couple of 1" or so No.8's holding it to the box side, it fits snug to the top though. An arm sticks out through the rear of the box. The end of the arm has two pronged downward facing hook that latches onto the top of the wall bracket made from 3mm plate steel with a double bend at the top for the hook ot rest on. This plate has three fixings into the substrate.

You could hook that arm onto the head of screw but you'd have to get the screw in *exactly* the right place left/right. With the adjustments available on the in box assembly (up/down, forward/back) and the abilty to slide the whole unit left/right on the plates you don't have to be that accurate with the fixings.

[Dave Liquorice]

Sods law would mean that you'd end up hanging the cupboard on the strip end that is *just* not long enough to be attached to a stud.

[Len S]

I just went through this (in the US) on other Ikea wall cabinets. When I asked this question (about mounting to studs spaced at 16") at my local Ikea , they (amazingly) said that no one had asked before. They were attentive but had no answers. What I did is modify the cabinets by installing a 1.5" x 2.5" wood strip inside under the top along the back. I screwed the cabinet sides and top to the strip which then could be used to catch at least two studs. BE CAREFULL about some of the suggestions in this thread because it is clear from the design of most IKEA hanging cabinets that the SIDES do all the work. If you fasten only the top to your mounting strip, the assembly will be much weaker.