In article , Neil no
junk please writes
Is there an approved method for attaching sinks, skirting, etc to dot
and dab walls. We have just had an extension added where the breeze
block is made of a bubbled gray breeze block material, wonderfully
light and easy to carve. I consider myself an expert at attaching to
plasterboard on timber frames as I have lived in houses of that
constrction for a number of years, however this new system is baffling
me. I ended up attaching the wooden, i.e. slightly warped, skirting to
the walls using 3" nails and two rawplugs per hole. It works but seems
totally over the top using No 10 screws for this. Similarly I am now
trying to attach a sink to a wall. The screw bolts provided are long
enough fo normal applications but at the moment the chunky rawplug is
just spinning in plaster board, air and soft breeze block. Any
suggestions please, but not including butterfly clamps, expanding
rawplugs etc because they won't work when the air gap is about 15mm.


My house is like that.

You need to ignore the plasterboard & push the rawlplug right through
into the block (on the end of the screw is usually the easiest way).
Then you need to make sure your screws are long enough to go through the
item being fixed, through the pb, across the gap and into the rawlplug
enough to open it up.

When drilling the block, if it's very soft, be careful not to drill the
hole too big, if the rawlplug spins in the block then all is lost.

Also don't tighten it up too much or you will bend the plasterboard.

When I put up some heavy kitchen cupboards, I cut a strip of
plasterboard away and screwed a batten directly to the blocks. It ended
up fairly flush with the surface of the plasterboard.

For skirting boards I would just glue them to the plasterboard with
gripfill or something.
--
Tim Mitchell