Drilling in to old (1930s) house internally to hang items (plus filling holes question).

B0bbyEwing

This is why I don't bother tackling DIY. Or at least one of the reasons. Then you get people in your ear saying you can't go wrong, you're overreacting, how bad can it be etc.

Tried putting a blind up today. Right side went not too bad aside from using the wrong sized drill bit (see, started going wrong at the start) so had to go bigger & use bigger plugs.

Learning from my mistake I tackled the left side, but these walls are like mush in random locations. I drilled in one hole & it shot straight through. I drilled the upper hole, it hit something inside the wall, clearly, because it deflected the drill bit & sent it off on an angle.

Story short, my 2 holes once trying rawl plugs & what not ended up as 1 big hole.

It's not the first time I've had issue with this mushy horsehair plaster. How do more knowledgable people tackle it? Surely you haven't all whipped it off back to brick & then gone with modern day plaster?



While on with that, how would you fill the holes created?
Both how
and what type of filler?

These are holes in the horsehair plaster as mentioned

But also the initial drilling in the kitchen (built in the early 2000s) went wrong so now have holes to fill in there too in the upper section of the window recess.

The holes are maybe 5-8cm at a guess, so again, how you'd fill and what kind of filler?

MX5huggy

I’d be drilling and fixing back to the brick. Longer plugs and screws. 1930’s bricks could be very hard with soft lime mortar between. An SDS drill will make short work but a simple hammer drill would probably suffice. 

I would use a powdered filler it will set by chemical reaction not drying out like the pre mix. https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-multi-purpose-filler-powder-white-off-white-2kg/396gt

B0bbyEwing

Thank you.

I had a hammer drill. Would rather not rent an SDS drill for hanging a blind.
Regards drilling in to brick, this will be where my inexperience shows but how do you know? You can't see through wallpaper & plaster. I just drilled. 2 holes were ok, 1 was so-so, the last one mushed the so-so one & made both of them 1 big hole (as they were fairly close together but still should've been far enough apart to not cause a problem).

Is that the filler you'd use both in the horsehair plaster and the normally plastered room?

FreeBear

MX5huggy said: I’d be drilling and fixing back to the brick. Longer plugs and screws. 1930’s bricks could be very hard with soft lime mortar between. An SDS drill will make short work but a simple hammer drill would probably suffice.

Certainly aim to drill in to solid brick, but it is often a crap shoot as to whether you hit a mortar joint or not. You may also find some bricks are little more than cinder blocks and fall apart as soon as you wave a drill at them. Resin fixing can be very useful if you have something large & heavy to fix to the wall. For smaller items, squirt some water in to the hole, and then pump some solvent free grab adhesive in before inserting a wall plug.

With lime plaster, you should push the wall plug in below the surface of the plaster - If you don't, as you tighten up the screw, the top of the plug expands and causes the plaster to break up. You should also do the same (pushing the plug below the surface) with plasterboard and/or gypsum plaster so that the underlying brick is taking the full load.

If you are drilling in to the wall above a window, you may find a concrete lintel behind the plaster - If it anything like mine, a heavy duty SDS is the only tool that will make a decent hole. Above some of the other windows, I have timber lintels, so just need decent long wood screws - Always a good idea to start with a small hole first.

plumb1_2

One of the mistakes diyers do is to start drilling holes with the hammer action on when starting to drill any holes.
Always start with hammer action off, and put hammer on if needed.
Always use a sharp drill bit
Always start with a smaller dia drill bit, then step up to the required size you need for the plug.

shiraz99

As above, you did the right thing using a smaller bit to start with as it's best practice to pilot hole when drilling into masonry but as stated you only use the hammer action when you actually hit masonry. Also, make sure you use the correct drill bit type.

Bigphil1474

One other tip, from experience. If you don't think you can do the job, don't do it (or pay a professional). My OH wanted some blinds in one of our rooms. I knew the walls were a bit flaky where the blinds would need fitting, so I talked her into having curtains instead as I knew I could fit a curtain rail easy enough.

nofoollikeold

1. For general DIY use - lots of different types of job around the house - in my opinion an SDS drill is essential, and for occasional use mains powered is better than battery.  With decent bits an SDS will go through most masonry type things, including lintels with aggregate in them.  Hammer drills just won't touch anything but soft masonry.  
2. As others have said, start of with a smaller diameter drill, say 4 mm, on non-hammer setting.  Get through the soft layers and make a starting mark on the hard stuff.
3. Drill almost to full depth with the smaller drill.
4. Use the bigger bit, again on non-hammer, until it finds the hard stuff, then hammer on and drill to full depth.  
5. Again as other have said, make sure the plug goes right into the hard stuff.  Any left in the soft plaster layer will just split and add nothing to the strength of the fixing.  

B0bbyEwing

FreeBear said:

If you are drilling in to the wall above a window, you may find a concrete lintel behind the plaster - If it anything like mine, a heavy duty SDS is the only tool that will make a decent hole. Above some of the other windows, I have timber lintels, so just need decent long wood screws - Always a good idea to start with a small hole first.

Ahh maybe I had hit the lintel then & that's what I was bouncing off.

It's up now but I'm not happy with the holes. I'm fortunate the second attempt worked. I was pretty raging after the hole attempt & the blind very nearly went in the bin which would've wound me up further as that would've been £60 set on fire. 

I know I know, it would've solved nothing. I have a short fuse, what can I say.

plumb1_2 said:

Always start with a smaller dia drill bit, then step up to the required size you need for the plug.

Thanks for the tip regards the hammer action.

Here's a question - how do you tell what size drill bit you need for the plugs you've been provided?

On the Fisher ones I have it says 8 so I know I use an 8mm drill bit. I actually start out with about a 5 or 6 & then work to an 8.

But on these blinds, they just provided some white plugs. I had no idea what size bit I needed so what I did was get an old wooden board & drilled a few holes in with various bits to see which looked most likely as what I wanted to avoid was getting it so far in but then getting stuck & not being able to send it home or pull it out.

Bigphil1474 said:

One other tip, from experience. If you don't think you can do the job, don't do it (or pay a professional). My OH wanted some blinds in one of our rooms. I knew the walls were a bit flaky where the blinds would need fitting, so I talked her into having curtains instead as I knew I could fit a curtain rail easy enough.

I'm in agreement with you there. It does have its problem though.

Professionals don't seem to be interested unless it's like a months lot of work that's paying big money. By that I mean it's hard work getting someone out for little jobs. 

Then you've got to tie it in with work & when you both work the same hours, it's a flipping pain.

shiraz99

B0bbyEwing said:

Here's a question - how do you tell what size drill bit you need for the plugs you've been provided?

On the Fisher ones I have it says 8 so I know I use an 8mm drill bit. I actually start out with about a 5 or 6 & then work to an 8.

But on these blinds, they just provided some white plugs. I had no idea what size bit I needed so what I did was get an old wooden board & drilled a few holes in with various bits to see which looked most likely as what I wanted to avoid was getting it so far in but then getting stuck & not being able to send it home or pull it out.

The standard coloured wall plugs are sized as follows;

Yellow 5mm for 4-8 screw
Red 6mm for 6-10 screw
Brown 7mm for 10-14 screw
Blue 10mm for 14-18 screw

You do tend to get these odd, cheap plugs that come with your purchases but I generally chuck the fixings and use a red plug (usually Fischer) instead. For your white plug you could simply measure against a drill bit then try with a size lower.

FreeBear

shiraz99 said: You do tend to get these odd, cheap plugs that come with your purchases but I generally chuck the fixings and use a red plug (usually Fischer) instead.

Same here. I'll bin the provided plugs and use my own. B&M do the Rawlplug UNO for less than £2 per pack of 96. A pack of red and another of brown cover just about everything apart from real heavy duty fixings like a radiator.