Pull up bar between 2 walls, safe?

delmonta

I'd like to put a pull up bar between two brick walls that are ok either side of my stairs in my Victorian house. I would use a steel hollow tube and a couple of steel wall mounts, that attach to the wall through 4 screw holes. 

I'd read some posts about people having nasty accidents when pull up bars failed and ripped out of the wall, but these were all ones attacked to a single wall with a triangle shape bracket, which creates a lot of downwards and outwards force, makes sense it could pull the plugs and screws out.

In my situation the pipe would be the exact width of the gap between the walls, so effectively couldn't pull outwards, only down. 

Am I right in thinking this is pretty safe? I planned to use some brown Rawl plugs and decent chunky/long screws

Any thoughts?

greyteam1959

Victorian houses often had the inside wall made of crappy bricks so think about that for a start.
You then select the position of your bar fixings & end up drilling into 100 year mortar ??
And not being funny you much do you weigh ??

delmonta

greyteam1959 said:

Victorian houses often had the inside wall made of crappy bricks so think about that for a start.
You then select the position of your bar fixings & end up drilling into 100 year mortar ??
And not being funny you much do you weigh ??

I weigh 75kg. 

Yeah that was a consideration going into mortar. I guess I could chip away a bit to see if I'm actually hitting a brick. The other option is to make a larger wooden piece on each side with more fixings in, which would then definitely hit brick in places. But I dont want it to look too ugly! I plan to paint it white and hope it blends in ok. There isn't really anywhere else to put it and I thought between two walls would be the strongest way

fenwick458

I have a pull up bar in between 2 walls, one is a stud, one is block
I used 33.7mm bar (common size handrail, easily available ) and 2 x railing base flanges
I have 2 other pull up bars and this one is the most solid, the other 2 protrude from the wall, one by 600mm out and 300m upwards so theres quite a bit of flex in that one, although I think I quite like it, you can use the spring in it to your advantage. I use the one between 2 walls when I do ones with added weight, not that I'm worried about any of them going anywhere I just like the solid feel

delmonta

fenwick458 said:

I have a pull up bar in between 2 walls, one is a stud, one is block
I used 33.7mm bar (common size handrail, easily available ) and 2 x railing base flanges
I have 2 other pull up bars and this one is the most solid, the other 2 protrude from the wall, one by 600mm out and 300m upwards so theres quite a bit of flex in that one, although I think I quite like it, you can use the spring in it to your advantage. I use the one between 2 walls when I do ones with added weight, not that I'm worried about any of them going anywhere I just like the solid feel

Thanks, yeah stud and block are probably a bit more reliable than my old victorian brick walls! but was looking at exactly that size steel and using a wall mount, very similar to what you linked to, but it has 4 screw holes

I'm thinking it should be ok as long as I can get the screws into the bricks, not mortar as someone else said, otherwise maybe I need to use some wood first to spread it across multiple bricks, but it will look ugly

EssexExile

You should be fine. With 4 (nice long) screws at each end and only downward force I can't see it going anywhere soon.

David713

delmonta said:

Yeah that was a consideration going into mortar. I guess I could chip away a bit to see if I'm actually hitting a brick. 

When you start drilling a hole for the fixing plugs, you should be able to tell if you are drilling through brick or mortar as if it's 100 year old mortar, a decent drill bit will go through it as if it wasn't even there.

delmonta

Ok thanks for the advice, I think it should be fine then!