Right angle drilling in a tight space

I have a storage heater which I've prevented from tipping over by fastening the upper part of the case to square aluminium tube which is in turn fastened to the nearest solid wood above the heater.

But I'd be happier if I could screw the feet through the laminate and into the floorboards underneath. There are two fair sized holes per heater foot, but the clearance is too small for the right-angle drill adaptor I have.

And moving the heater isn't a task to be taken lightly (or single-handedly).

Any ideas on how to make 4 small holes in such a confined space? I don't want to buy yet another special purpose tool which I may only use once every five years :-(

Reply to
Windmill
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Can you jack up one end at a time to get some space? Drill in at an angle?

A pic would help.

Reply to
ss

Presumably the angle required for an ordinary screwdriver/long drill bit is too shallow?

Not without dismantling I agree. At this time of year I assume it's on so you'd probably have to wait a day or two for it to cool down enough to be able to handle the bricks. If it's an old heater the element might be a bit "aged and fragile" as well...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Agreed. Given the weight, is it *that* likely to tip especially if you already have a tie at the top? Could you self-tap something to the "foot" to give you an extended foot in one or both directions which you could then screw to the floor? Also as other poster said moving an "old" heater is a recipe for failure.

Reply to
newshound

I sort of thought of that as well, I think the feet will stay with the heater though. So mark through the feet before jacking to drill. Lower the heater but how do you drive the screws?

Just thought, take the top off and put some screws through the back into the wall. In fact I think that is how ours are attached.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Double ended screws, one end wood-screw, the other end machine-screw and then nuts? Hex headed screws and a spanner?

Probably the best bet.

SteveW

Reply to
SteveW

Take another piece of your square aluminium tube, a bit longer than the width of the heater, drill a screw hole through each end. Then place it over the feet of the heater and screw the protruding ends of said tube to the floor, thus clamping the feet to the floor without it actually being attached to them.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

On Wednesday 27 November 2013 19:55 Dave Liquorice wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Small coach screws.

Reply to
Tim Watts

You can get screws with a hexagon head & use an open ended/ring spanner. Just a matter of a slight indentaion to get a start.

Reply to
harryagain

Ahem, when they put mine in, all this was done before the bricks ere fitted. Not much help to you I know!

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Difficult, and I don't know how sturdy the base is. Just thin sheet metal, I think, with the weight of the bricks (some hundreds of pounds) distributed fairly evenly.

That is probably what I'll have to settle for. Nothing wrong with the idea, strength-wise, but it seems a bit ugly.

Some years ago a child was killed after pulling a storage heater on top of himself, so they introduced a requirement that these devices had to be attached to the wall.

The designers of this unit seem to have decided to enforce that requirement by making the unit unstable unless attached to the wall - it will topple over without some kind of wall attachment. It would also be stable if the U-shaped legs were screwed into the floor with lag bolts (one leg of the U attaches to the heater case, and the other leg lies flat on the floor, but the centre of gravity is forward of the front of the leg).

I really need to relearn how to get pictures from my old mobile phone into my old Linux laptop. There was a way, though it wasn't straightforward, which I didn't make note of a couple of years ago. Bluetooth I think, plus a bit of less than obvious black magic.

Reply to
Windmill

Not necessarily. I can probably do that, but didn't think of it, perhaps because it seems a bit of a kluge.

And without the heat the bedroom would be pretty chilly. I may be forced to drill and screw in at an angle.

Reply to
Windmill

It seems to have been designed to be unstable. Short U shaped legs which don't extend forward far enough to ensure the thing won't tip. And the tie is screwed into wood, which may dry out after a month or two of cold weather/maximum heating. Relying only on the ties (one at each side) makes me a little nervous.

Same problem: to tap I would first have to drill, and drilling into the steel leg rather than through the holes in the legs would be dodgy; the legs are only 1/8" thick or maybe less.

Reply to
Windmill

This heater had two Tinnerman nuts (I think they're called - pieces of folded steel into which you're supposed to drive sheet metal screws), one at each side, with no other means of attachment at the top.

So I screwed square aluminium tube to that and into the wood above and the thin plywood below. It seems solid, but I wouldn't like to try ripping the thing loose; I might well succeed.

Reply to
Windmill

The problem is drilling through the hard laminate into the floorboards beneath. Once that's done, various fasteners could be used.

Needs some redundancy IMHO.

Reply to
Windmill

That's maybe the best idea. Though if I think about the leverage issue, it would probably have to be steel tube, not aluminium.

Reply to
Windmill

That certainly might happen, but if they were lag bolts they wouldn't pull out very easily so they would add some strength; a bit of redundancy instead of relying entirely on the fastenings at the top.

I don't know the history of this wall. It's an outside wall and therefore hollow, but it's not the original wall which would have been lath and plaster with some kind of decorative finish on top to match the mouldings on either side. So what there is now is a sheet of thin plywood with a wooden cross piece behind it at the top, and nothing much (it seems) anywhere else.

Reply to
Windmill

An indentation in hard laminate? No problem once you're into the floorboard beneath, I grant you.

Reply to
Windmill

Getting the thing in place without help was a bit of a challenge. Otherwise I'd have done it differently (and would do it differently if repeating the operation :-)

Reply to
Windmill

Two screws, or three.

Presumbly this thing is stable when upright just becomes unstable rather quickly if the top is pulled away from the wall. You aren't trying to hold the thing against it's weight just stop it being pulled from vertical.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

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