Hi,

I tried to put some shelves up in my rented room only to find the brick
crumble under the drill I ended up with 5 fairly big holes, the wall
just seems to crumble under the drill bit. Is there any hope of putting
up shelves on this wall or would it just not take the weight?

TIA
Rich

wrote in message
.com...
Hi,

I tried to put some shelves up in my rented room only to find the brick
crumble under the drill I ended up with 5 fairly big holes, the wall
just seems to crumble under the drill bit. Is there any hope of putting
up shelves on this wall or would it just not take the weight?

TIA
Rich


Sounds pretty hopeless. How about a freestanding shelf unit instead?

Bob

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I tried to put some shelves up in my rented room only to find the
brick
crumble under the drill I ended up with 5 fairly big holes, the wall
just seems to crumble under the drill bit. Is there any hope of
putting
up shelves on this wall or would it just not take the weight?

TIA
Rich


Hope your landlord doesn't dock your deposit too much !

AWEM (the Landlord!)

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I tried to put some shelves up in my rented room only to find the brick
crumble under the drill I ended up with 5 fairly big holes, the wall
just seems to crumble under the drill bit. Is there any hope of putting
up shelves on this wall or would it just not take the weight?

Is the dust a sort of fine grey powder? Sounds like they aren't "brick" but
one of the light weight blocks.

Try fixing some wall plugs ("Rawel Plugs" etc) into the holes with some
building adhesive. Make sure it sets before screwing the shelves into it.
Blow out dust, squirt in adhesive, push in plugs (should be tight fit),
screws, leave to set, then remove screws, add brackets with longer screws.

--
73
Brian, G8OSN
www.g8osn.org.uk

Andrew Mawson wrote:
usenet wrote in message...
I tried to put some shelves up in my rented room only to find the
brick crumble under the drill I ended up with 5 fairly big holes,
the walljust seems to crumble under the drill bit. Is there any
hope of putting up shelves on this wall or would it just not take
the weight?

Hope your landlord doesn't dock your deposit too much !
AWEM (the Landlord!)

Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets
Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets

I love to hear those convicts squeal
It's a shame these slugs ain't real
But we can't have dancin' at the local county jail


(is this (for real"?)).

well it is fairly light and grey, with little bits of grit in it. Its
an old victorian house in portsmouth if that helps?

wrote:
well it is fairly light and grey, with little bits of grit in it. Its
an old victorian house in portsmouth if that helps?

Sounds like lath and plaster to me. If it's crumbling leave it well alone
and buy a free-standing shelf unit.

Si

On 7 Nov 2005 13:50:09 -0800, wrote:

Is there any hope of putting up shelves on this wall or would it just not take the weight?

Can't tell without trying it - but it's usually possible to do this in
even the worst crumbly brick. Drill at least 1/2 brick's width and
attach vertical battens with as many fixings as you can muster, not just
those for the brackets themselves. For the fixings, use either old
stock Rawlplug compound (lovely asbestos mixture, but effective) or a
modern polyester resin in a self-mixing tube (few quid from Screwfix).

Brian Reay wrote:
[snip]

Blow out dust, squirt in adhesive, push in plugs (should be tight fit).

Will that work for the missus?
--
Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

wrote in message
ups.com...
well it is fairly light and grey, with little bits of grit in it. Its
an old victorian house in portsmouth if that helps?

Are you sure it is a brick wall you are trying to drill into? It sounds more
as though you are drilling into a lath and plaster wall. The only way to fix
shelves to one of those is to find the wooden uprights (studs) that are
holding the wall up and fix the shelves to those.

Gentle tapping on the wall should produce a more solid sound when you find a
stud, but, because the laths were nailed to the studs, a pipe and cable
finder will often do the job better and quicker. You can get things that
call themselves stud finders, but they are usually confused by the thickness
of plaster on lath and plaster walls.

Colin Bignell

On 7 Nov 2005 13:50:09 -0800, wrote:

Hi,

I tried to put some shelves up in my rented room only to find the brick
crumble under the drill I ended up with 5 fairly big holes, the wall
just seems to crumble under the drill bit. Is there any hope of putting
up shelves on this wall or would it just not take the weight?

TIA
Rich

the wall will take teh weigt, you need to spread it - use long fixings and
pack around with mortar or car body filler.

Well tbh I don't have a clue about what walls are made of so was only
guessing. My landlord recently had the whole house replastered. So are
you saying under the plaster there are just slats of wood? How can I
really tell for sure?

Thanks
Rich

wrote in message
ups.com...
well it is fairly light and grey, with little bits of grit in it. Its
an old victorian house in portsmouth if that helps?

It sounds like you might be drilling into a soft clinker brick. They used
to build these into brick walls in strategic places to give the carpenters
something to nail into - they're fine for nailing but they don't drill well
because they are very soft and very coarse in texture.

You might be unlucky and find they used these bricks for the whole wall, but
they're usually laid spaced apart in a particular horizontal brick course
for fixing picture rails or dado rails etc. You might well find harder
bricks if you try drilling about 9" above or below your previous holes.

Peter

"Peter Taylor" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ups.com...
well it is fairly light and grey, with little bits of grit in it. Its
an old victorian house in portsmouth if that helps?

It sounds like you might be drilling into a soft clinker brick. They used
to build these into brick walls in strategic places to give the carpenters
something to nail into - they're fine for nailing but they don't drill
well because they are very soft and very coarse in texture.

You might be unlucky and find they used these bricks for the whole wall,
but they're usually laid spaced apart in a particular horizontal brick
course for fixing picture rails or dado rails etc. You might well find
harder bricks if you try drilling about 9" above or below your previous
holes.

Peter

I meant to add that if you can't find anything decent to drill into then I'd
suggest using the old-fashioned method of timber plugs in the brick joints.

On 8 Nov 2005 01:27:02 -0800, wrote:

Well tbh I don't have a clue about what walls are made of so was only
guessing. My landlord recently had the whole house replastered. So are
you saying under the plaster there are just slats of wood? How can I
really tell for sure?

Thanks
Rich

You need to find out exactly what the constuction of the wall is.
....You said that the landlord has recently had the whole house
replastered ...He could have used plasterboard either directly on to
the wall or on to wooden straps ..or he could have just had the walls
skimmed over .

You eed to find someone who knows what they are looking for to
establish what it is you are trying to secure the shelves to .Don't
you know anyone experienced in d.i.y. who could help.. ???


Stuart




--

Shift THELEVER to reply.

hi thanks for your reply, unfortunately I don't really know anyone who
can help me. I have ended up drilling one of the holes further to try
and see what the wall is made of; the drill got about 7cm in (can't be
plaster and lath can it?). The top layer which is about 2.5cm thick
consists is slightly yellowy greyish with grit and I think I saw hair
in it(?). After that the wall seems to be more greyish but is still
just coming away with my hand as dust.

Can anyone tell me what this is and what I can do? or should I just use
lots of filler and forget it?

Thx Rich

On 8 Nov 2005 01:27:02 -0800, wrote:

So are
you saying under the plaster there are just slats of wood? How can I
really tell for sure?

What do you mean by a "crumbly wall" ? If you poke a hole into it,
what do you find ? (the first 1/2 is always likely to be plaster and
doesn't count).

Thick grey or pink plaster - this is just thick plaster, impossible to
hang a weight off . You need to drill deeper.

Grey cement block dust, where the material is to hard to push a steel
spike into by hand. These are breeze blocks. They'll take a screwed
fixing and a reasonable weight, but usea plug that doesn't expand too
much or else you can crack them.

Red brick dust, hard or soft. This is brick and you should get a firm
fixing into it. Crumbly bricks will form oversize holes and will need a
"sticky" plug material in them, not just a plastic plug.

If you hit dark mortar on some holes, you've drilled betweem two bricks.
Best to simply move along a bit and try again.

Open airspace, or wood fragments. This is lath and plaster. It's very
dificult to hang a heavy shelf off it, but you can use toggle fittings
to hang something light, like a light fitting.

wrote:

or should I just use
lots of filler and forget it?

Yes


--