Hi,
I tried to put some shelves up in my rented room only to find the brick crumble under the drill I ended up with 5 fairly big holes, the wall just seems to crumble under the drill bit. Is there any hope of putting up shelves on this wall or would it just not take the weight?
TIA Rich
Sounds pretty hopeless. How about a freestanding shelf unit instead?
Bob
putting
Hope your landlord doesn't dock your deposit too much !
AWEM (the Landlord!)
Is the dust a sort of fine grey powder? Sounds like they aren't "brick" but one of the light weight blocks.
Try fixing some wall plugs ("Rawel Plugs" etc) into the holes with some building adhesive. Make sure it sets before screwing the shelves into it. Blow out dust, squirt in adhesive, push in plugs (should be tight fit), screws, leave to set, then remove screws, add brackets with longer screws.
Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets
I love to hear those convicts squeal It's a shame these slugs ain't real But we can't have dancin' at the local county jail
(is this (for real"?)).
well it is fairly light and grey, with little bits of grit in it. Its an old victorian house in portsmouth if that helps?
Sounds like lath and plaster to me. If it's crumbling leave it well alone and buy a free-standing shelf unit.
Si
the weight?
Can't tell without trying it - but it's usually possible to do this in even the worst crumbly brick. Drill at least 1/2 brick's width and attach vertical battens with as many fixings as you can muster, not just those for the brackets themselves. For the fixings, use either old stock Rawlplug compound (lovely asbestos mixture, but effective) or a modern polyester resin in a self-mixing tube (few quid from Screwfix).
Brian Reay wrote: [snip]
Blow out dust, squirt in adhesive, push in plugs (should be tight fit).
Will that work for the missus?
-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite
Planks and bricks is the time-honoured tenant's furniture.
If you can't afford good honest planks and bricks, Ikea.
Owain
Are you sure it is a brick wall you are trying to drill into? It sounds more as though you are drilling into a lath and plaster wall. The only way to fix shelves to one of those is to find the wooden uprights (studs) that are holding the wall up and fix the shelves to those.
Gentle tapping on the wall should produce a more solid sound when you find a stud, but, because the laths were nailed to the studs, a pipe and cable finder will often do the job better and quicker. You can get things that call themselves stud finders, but they are usually confused by the thickness of plaster on lath and plaster walls.
Colin Bignell
the wall will take teh weigt, you need to spread it - use long fixings and pack around with mortar or car body filler.
Well tbh I don't have a clue about what walls are made of so was only guessing. My landlord recently had the whole house replastered. So are you saying under the plaster there are just slats of wood? How can I really tell for sure?
Thanks Rich
It sounds like you might be drilling into a soft clinker brick. They used to build these into brick walls in strategic places to give the carpenters something to nail into - they're fine for nailing but they don't drill well because they are very soft and very coarse in texture.
You might be unlucky and find they used these bricks for the whole wall, but they're usually laid spaced apart in a particular horizontal brick course for fixing picture rails or dado rails etc. You might well find harder bricks if you try drilling about 9" above or below your previous holes.
Peter
I meant to add that if you can't find anything decent to drill into then I'd suggest using the old-fashioned method of timber plugs in the brick joints.
You need to find out exactly what the constuction of the wall is. ....You said that the landlord has recently had the whole house replastered ...He could have used plasterboard either directly on to the wall or on to wooden straps ..or he could have just had the walls skimmed over .
You eed to find someone who knows what they are looking for to establish what it is you are trying to secure the shelves to .Don't you know anyone experienced in d.i.y. who could help.. ???
Stuart
hi thanks for your reply, unfortunately I don't really know anyone who can help me. I have ended up drilling one of the holes further to try and see what the wall is made of; the drill got about 7cm in (can't be plaster and lath can it?). The top layer which is about 2.5cm thick consists is slightly yellowy greyish with grit and I think I saw hair in it(?). After that the wall seems to be more greyish but is still just coming away with my hand as dust.
Can anyone tell me what this is and what I can do? or should I just use lots of filler and forget it? :)
Thx Rich
What do you mean by a "crumbly wall" ? If you poke a hole into it, what do you find ? (the first 1/2 is always likely to be plaster and doesn't count).
Thick grey or pink plaster - this is just thick plaster, impossible to hang a weight off . You need to drill deeper.
Grey cement block dust, where the material is to hard to push a steel spike into by hand. These are breeze blocks. They'll take a screwed fixing and a reasonable weight, but usea plug that doesn't expand too much or else you can crack them.
Red brick dust, hard or soft. This is brick and you should get a firm fixing into it. Crumbly bricks will form oversize holes and will need a "sticky" plug material in them, not just a plastic plug.
If you hit dark mortar on some holes, you've drilled betweem two bricks. Best to simply move along a bit and try again.
Open airspace, or wood fragments. This is lath and plaster. It's very dificult to hang a heavy shelf off it, but you can use toggle fittings to hang something light, like a light fitting.
Yes
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