My DIY pride and joy, my baby, my beautiful artisanal shelf, just fell off the fucking wall right in front of me and I very nearly shat myself. I still haven't got round to picking up all the DVDs that were on it. Here is a photo of my shelf that was presumably too heavy to stay on the wall. I call her Michelf McManus.
What happened, and how can I ensure this doesn't happen again? Some information that will hopefully be helpful:
>The shelf has been up for months without any problems
>It is a little under two metres in length, and was supported by two of the shelving brackets you see in the photo
>It was used to mostly hold DVDs, plus assorted household junk that I was going to put on the shelf below it, which I only bought today. Nothing too heavy
>I put up the other shelving brackets a few days ago, but haven't put a shelf on there yet
>The wall is made of plaster, with bricks behind the plaster
Some theories I have about why it might have fallen down:
-Perhaps my Rawlplugs are too small
-Perhaps I needed longer screws
-Most likely of all given the timing, perhaps I drilled the other holes for my new shelf too close to the old shelf and weakened the plaster somehow
-Perhaps those are the wrong type of Rawlplugs, but I doubt it
-Perhaps drilling into the wall under a full shelf caused harmful vibrations
-Perhaps the holes were a bit too big and the brackets worked themselves loose
Like I say, I have just bought a second shelf, and there are now DVDs all over my floor, so please help me. I don't want this to happen again.
Happens all the time m8. In British conditions, plaster inevitably gets weakened over time. Plaster expands and contracts with humidity, so a change in the weather can cause fixings to suddenly fail.
Your best option is to go with longer screws. A longer screw will spread the load over a bigger surface, but you also get the benefit of biting into solid brick. Filler is stronger than plaster if you apply it properly - clean out any loose dust, poke the filler all the way into the hole and give it 48 hours to set.
Rawlplug on your picture looks like it's barely expanded. The screw is sitting inside it too comfortably, she needs a bit more girth to spread her out. If you've ever pulled out a properly filled one you'll see what I mean, you can tell they've been used. Like the above lad says though the plaster itself is just shit sometimes, maybe give the raw freshly drilled hole a good sloppy pump of all purpose adhesive before you slide the plug in.
Rawlplugs should look like a mangled mess if you ever see them at all they should be in a hole so tight that you might end up hammering them in and the size relative to the screw should be to a level where as you put in the screw it should absolutely chew the shit out of them and turn them into a deformed plastic lump. The fact that it has popped so cleanly out the wall suggests both are the problem. In terms of length I would use the longest screw that logically will fit the rawlplug and the depth of the affixed object.
Rawlplugs should have 2 numbers on the packet 1 for the size of the drill piece 1 for the width of the screw. Personally I am always suspicious of the drill size and will go slightly smaller than suggested to check that the rawlplug will actually have a snug fit. Basically what I am saying is measure once cut twice. If you have one of those drill hole measures with your kit just pushing your rawlplug through the holes is a great sanity check before you make the hole bigger than you should.
Shitty plaster shouldn't be a problem if you go deep enough. I moved into a wet box in Wales where I have to run a dehumidifier 24/7 with cracks from water damage where the plaster is seperating from the brick- I have exercise equipment fixed onto my walls which is expected to have me lever my full weight on it aggressively.
If vibrations from drilling near it were a problem. It was never really secure in the first place. The fit should be so tight that the screw itself becomes the wall.
Thank you very much for your help so far. I do actually have gigantic Rawlplugs that I bought by mistake when I thought I could become a DIY master if only I owned my own home. They are M5 x 55, it says on the box, and they're meant to be used for fixing radiators to plasterboard so they must be pretty hefty, even if 55mm isn't the longest screw on the market. The screws need a bloody Torx screwdriver, too, so they're clearly for mental DIY fetishists.
They will also require me to drill a 10mm hole, but my drill bits are just "size 5", "size 6", "size 8", and so on. I used either size 5 or size 6 to drill the massive holes that the shelf fell out of, and I think those holes should only be around 5mm (https://www.engineeringclicks.com/drill-size-chart/) but they're definitely a lot bigger, probably because drills wobble around a lot when you're terrible at DIY. Are there any tips I need to know beyond "hold the drill with both hands and try to wobble it less"? Like, should I use a lower speed, or buy a better drill?
>>3260 >Happens all the time m8.
Thank you in particular for saying this. It's slightly embarrassing how relieved I was to read this.
>Thank you in particular for saying this. It's slightly embarrassing how relieved I was to read this.
Tradesmen and cunts on internet forums take the piss out of DIYers, but it's all bravado. Every electrician has a story about the time they touched the wrong thing and blew themselves across the room, every plumber has a story about the time they flooded someone's house. Professionals make mistakes all the time, they just have more experience in fixing them.
>They will also require me to drill a 10mm hole, but my drill bits are just "size 5", "size 6", "size 8", and so on.
British drills have been metric since the 70s, so a "size 5" drill is almost certainly 5mm. Drilling oversized holes is very common, particularly with masonry drills; to a certain extent, it's just a matter of experience to stop the drill from wandering. Start on the non-hammer setting, then switch to the hammer setting once you've got a hole started. Sometimes it's easier to use a brad point drill to get through the plaster, then switch to a masonry drill when you hit brick. Cheaper drills tend to be a bit under-powered for masonry drilling, so you might find it easier to start with a smaller hole and widen it out to final size.
>Are there any tips I need to know beyond "hold the drill with both hands and try to wobble it less"? Like, should I use a lower speed, or buy a better drill?
Drill a pilot hole first, ie. one smaller than the one you expect to have, then just expand the hole with a larger drill bit. the reduced resistance, will allow you to drill with more control and precision.
>>3267 Whenever it's come to enlargening a pre-drilled hole, the edges of the drill bit bite into the wall and pull out chunks of masonry.
Pilot holes are for screws, not for bigger holes.
Not to hijack the thread, but since you lads are mentioning drilling... I bought my first electric one a few days ago and couldn't figure out how to actually get the drill bits in.
I did eventually catch on that I needed to hold the end bit and use it until small pincer-like bits came out, but they never seem to hold the drill bit tightly enough. I can "tip out" the bit just by turning it over. What am I doing wrong?
>>3262 >Personally I am always suspicious of the drill size and will go slightly smaller than suggested to check that the rawlplug will actually have a snug fit.
The building manager at my work gave me some Rawlplugs and screws to use. I regularly doubt his expertise in various DIY topics, but I can't deny that this was a wonderfully kind gesture. The types of Rawlplugs I needed were "the brown ones" and he had a big box of screws which have Torx heads, which I still think is weird, but they're long enough to go through the wooden shelving bracket and still completely fill the Rawlplug, so again, no complaints.
But how the hell do I make the Rawlplugs fit into the wall? I have remounted one shelving bracket so far, but the Rawlplugs just aren't going in for the second one. I hammered the first ones in with a mallet, but now I'm just bending and damaging these ones for the second bracket. Obviously I could make the hole bigger, but wasn't that the problem the first time? The hole is deep enough because the screw goes in. Should I just make a massive hole, stick in some Polyfilla, and push the Rawlplug into that before it dries?
You may need to blow the dust out of the hole?
It sounds like you're overthinking this somewhat, rawlplugs aren't incomprehensible technology gifted to us by ancient aliens, they're some softish stuff to take up the space between two hard things that would otherwise be difficult to join. If (after clearing any dust) the rawlplug won't go in the hole, you need a slightly bigger hole, or a smaller rawlplug.
Or maybe I'm missing the point. If so, post pics.
The fins on the end of a masonry drill bit last about a minute before they just get worn away and cease to exist. I don't know what's inside the bricks in my house, but it's tough stuff. Multiple drill bits now have gone in with those bits on the end, and come out looking like a pencil.
It's possible that you've got unlucky and hit something mega-hard or that you've done something incredibly daft, but I think that by far the most likely scenario is that they're just poor quality drill bits.
Those fins should be made of tungsten carbide, which is the toughest bulk material known to man.
Just to check, are you using the drill on the hammer setting?
>>3274 I am using the hammer setting, yes. Sometimes I try one of the other settings, like how sometimes I reverse the rotation as well, but generally, I'm on the hammer setting. The drill bit for drilling into steel girders (according to the picture) works a bit better, but the drill came from Aldi so I can't expect too much. I have bought multiple replacement drill bits, all from B&M Bargains, so they're probably junk too.
There are also numbers on the drill, going from 1 to 20. I usually set the drill to 9, but I have tried different numbers and they don't seem to make any difference. I assume they're different speeds, but neither 1 nor 20 suddenly rips through the brick.
