Drilling holes in poor quality internal walls

Brighton_belle

I want to fix some shelf uprights to a wall in our house. Some of our internal walls appear to be made more of rubble than bricks (it's Victorian) so sometimes when I drill, the holes become too big - say the size of a 10p or more. Are there any tips for helping prevent this happen? Thanks

ormus

if the walls are that poor, than nothing you do will prevent it happening.
what you have to do is to make the hole and then make good, so you can get a proper fixing.
ie



dig out the cr ap, then make good with cement and maybe some wood.
then final plaster over if required.


the above is for a (heavy) fire extinguisher bracket.

Kevstir

What you need is wet n fix, their round discs that you place in water then wrap round a raw plug, insert the raw plug and wait till it drys and away you go, iv used many in my house as my walls crumble at the sight of a drill, I used them to put up a banister and a year later it's still solid, defo recommend them.

I used the wicks own brand

http://www.wickes.co.uk/wet-and-fix/invt/511151/

Screwfix do the original ones

http://www.screwfix.com/p/fischer-wet-n-fix-pack-of-50/77888

Kev

Brighton_belle

Thank you both very much. I'll be off to wickes then!:D

zax47

Kevstir wrote: »

What you need is wet n fix, their round discs that you place in water then wrap round a raw plug, insert the raw plug and wait till it drys and away you go, iv used many in my house as my walls crumble at the sight of a drill, I used them to put up a banister and a year later it's still solid, defo recommend them.

It's RAWL plug, named after a Mr John Rawlings !

http://www.rawlplug.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3&Itemid=3

Kevstir

Haha how sad, to think you spent time to research and reply just because I missed the letter L, from now on I will make sure I say rawl plug just so you dont have to waste your time , mind you sounds like you have nothing else better to do on a sat night lol...

loracan1

Kevstir wrote: »

What you need is wet n fix, their round discs that you place in water then wrap round a raw plug, insert the raw plug and wait till it drys and away you go, iv used many in my house as my walls crumble at the sight of a drill, I used them to put up a banister and a year later it's still solid, defo recommend them.

I used the wicks own brand

http://www.wickes.co.uk/wet-and-fix/invt/511151/

Screwfix do the original ones

http://www.screwfix.com/p/fischer-wet-n-fix-pack-of-50/77888

Kev

What are these made from? (I'm running out of matchsticks and woodglue for the coathooks in the hallway)

Kevstir

From their website.

The cotton weaved pad is impregnated with a special formulated gypsum to bond naturally to brickwork,masonry, ceramic, wood and plasterboards, securing the plug into place

Yorkie1

So, it would work where the plasterwork on top of the brickwork is quite crumbly? Do you drill a slightly larger hole than you would usually do, in order to give enough room for the fixing to fit too?

I like the sound of this product!

Kevstir

Exactly m8, my house is a 1930's build with about an inch on plaster on top of brick, any time i drill a hole it ends up bigger, just use the the right sized drill for the wall plug, if the hole ends up bigger then use 1 on 2 wet n fix discs round the wall plug, if you goto the wet n fix website there is a video showing you.

Over half of the wall plugs used to fix this solid oak banister are wrapped in wetnfix pads, as I said above, over a year later and it's still held firm

Yorkie1

Thanks - every day's a school day. Thread bookmarked!