mouting heavy mirror on plasterboard

[mark.siever]

I have bought a heavy mirror 16kg and 44" x 32" which I want to centre on a plasterboard wall. It has 4 holes on the back in each corner on which you are supposed to hang the mirror off your screws. I have located the studs and they are not in the right place for me to use. My previous experience with the metal plasterboard screws that expand in the cavity, are that when you try to tighten them up to expand, they screw right through into the wall, probably due to the plasterboard being cheap and crappy. Any suggestions?

[Bob Minchin]

Mount it on battens screwed into the studs.

Bob

[John Rumm]

A mirror is a very easy load to carry on plasterboard since it is close enough to the wall that almost all the load is in shear. Something simple like Redidrive fixings ought to be fine:

[Tom Woods]

one of my rooms is plasterboarded. I have shelves fitted to the walls using some special rawlplug type affairs that spread out at the back as you screw into them. There is quite a bit of weight on the shelves and they havent moved yet!

[The Medway Handyman]

I'd love to meet the knobheads who design fixings like this. Drilling 4 holes at exact spacing horizontally & vertically is bloody near impossible to do with 100% accuracy in masonry or plasterboard.

Had this problem on Friday, simple task (part of a bigger job) was to hang a toilet roll holder & towel ring. Hole centres were 103mm & 57mm respectively. WTF can't they at least make the centres 100mm & 50mm? No template included in the instructions.

Had to extend pencil lines from hole centres to edge of fitment, mark horizontal line on wall, transfer lines to wall & then drill with 100% accuracy - one wall was tiled, one masonry. Must be a simpler way surely?

I hang things on walls every day, so I'm fairly good at it, but what about your average DIY guy?

[Stuart Noble]

I usually use a piece of card and just push the pencil through it into the holes. Not so easy with 4 holes that far apart though. In this case I'd probably use a pair of mirror plates instead. I rather like the little brass ears sticking out anyway

[John]

I hate the type of item that requires screws to be put into the wall ant the item then has concealed keyhole plates.

Without having an item on the screw you can't tighten it to activate most plasterboard fixings - and you can't get at the screw when the item is on the wall.

Also - many modern screws tend to cut a thread into plastic plugs - they really need the old type of woodscrew that was tapered and expanded the plug to give a more solid fixing.