hanging kitchen cupboard with window anchors?

[kevin_robson]

Our 1M wide kitchen cabinet/cupboard came down last night. It was held at each upper corner and on one side it pulled the screw fixing out of the wall. It is a solid brick outside wall, not s atud wall. Had been up for two years so dont know what happened.

Anyway, I now have a fair bit of missing mortar and am also keen to ensure it stays up this time. Will window anchors work to hold this in place? I'm not worried about them coming out of the wall, more about them snapping?

http://www.screwfix.com/cats/101151/Fixings/Window-Anchors

Any better ideas given that a standard rawl plug didn't work, and I now have a big hole in the wall?

Thanks

 

[JohnD]

I now have a big hole in the wall

I immediately wonder how long the screw was, and it it was in sound brick, loose mortar, or what. A photo of this hole might be informative.

Was it in a plastic plug, and what length and condition is the plug?

 

[kevin_robson]

I was probably exagerating about a 'big hole. Its probably and inch square, and half and inch deep. But with the half-inch deep bit I'd struggle to get a standard one in.

From memory it was a rawl plug for fixing medium/heavy items, and may have been B and Q's own brand.

Its possible it was intomortar rather than brick I suppose. This all happened fairly late last night so I've not analyzed the damage too much.

Going forward, would a window anchor be OK or would it bend/snap? Or any better suggestions?

 

[JohnD]

I immediately wonder how long the screw was

 

[Kes]

A half-inch depth is nowhere near adequate. You should aim to get the depth of the plastic plug into the brickwork, which means a hole around 45-50 mm deep from the face of the plasterwork.

In old English, drill a hole 1.75 inches deep, with the screw going in aprox 1.5 inches.

 

[noseall]

as John says, the length of screw is of great importance.

increasing the screw length by as little as one inch, increases the holding capacity by huge amounts.

if the screw only went into the masonry by 1/2 an inch then i'm not surprised you had a failure. only an idiot would rely on as little as this to hold up (what can be when filled) heavy cupboards.

i would defy anyone to pull a cupboard from the wall when using screws that penetrate the (sound) masonry by 50mm.

 

[kevin_robson]

Thanks Chaps. But I didn't say it was a 25mm screw, just that I now had a hole about half and inch deep where the plaster has been pulled out. The original screw was about 60mm - it wasn't a small one.

Could you post a link to a suitable size screw and plug to use, or is the link I posted OK?

 

[noseall]

you could hang an elephant off a 3",10 using decent brown plugs and a 7mm drill bit.

 

[^woody^]

Indian or African?

 

[noseall]

Indian or African?

African, silly.

 

[JohnD]

unless the wallplug was loose in its hole.

And we now have a cure for that.

 

[kevin_robson]

OK cheers. On closer inspection both of the fixings had gone into mortar between the bricks rather than into brick.

I guess I'm gonna have to put it up in the same place sadly. Will the 3" ones do the trick even if it is still going into this mortar between brick, or would I bet advised to use even longer. Its a double skin wall so I can use as long as I like really. Only other option is to drop or raise it an inch, but that would look wrong.

P.S. Wont be using cupboard to store elephants

 

[JohnD]

if you use Cabinet Hangers, they have a small steel plate that you fasten to the wall, and an adjustable part fixed to the cabinet, that hooks over these plates and can be adjusted up/down in/out

You will probably be able to drill into sound brick.

btw if drilling into anything crumbly, wash out the hole, then put the nozzle of a no-more-nails gun deep into the hole, and fill it from the far end, then push your plasplug into it. This prevents any looseness or free play. Leave it overnight to harden before driving in the screw.