Harlan Messinger wrote:

Speedy Jim wrote:

Harlan Messinger wrote:

Why it takes me so long to get up the steam to start a home
improvement project:

I got a pedestal sink to replace a vanity sink in a powder room. I
need to put in a backer board. I remove some of the drywall and find
two plastic pipes from above, presumably drain pipes, one straight
down the middle between the water supply pipes and one on the left
just inside the stud, and BOTH smack against the back of the drywall.


SNIP

So, don't use a "board".

How about a 1/4" thk steel plate notched into the studs?
Tap the plate for bolts or permanently fasten threaded studs
to it.


Nope, there isn't even a quarter inch between the front of these pipes
and the back of the drywall. But there IS about a sixteenth of an inch.
I could screw a steel sheet between the studs, after having screwed
rectangles from a 2x8 to the back of the sheet to cover the space
between the intruding pipes. (I do have over 2 inches between the front
of the supply pipes and the back of the drywall.) The wood would span
the locations of the bolts. Does that sound sufficiently solid?



That sounds workable. And you could make the steel plate
as "tall" as you need to give the stiffness.