Friday 13 July 2012

Wall anchors are not all equal

Some checking around confirmed that some wall anchors are way better than others, its a get what we pay for thing I expect?  I have also noticed that a wall anchor in brickwork is not recomended sized over 12mm in its bolt size, thats  a 18mm masonary drill size, so just as well.

Use a smaller masonary drill start the hole, you will find it more acurate and faster in the long run, I used two sizes before the last masonary drill which was a 16mm size.


Two types you can choose from, the one on the left is an 8mm Sleeve Anchor, this is quite a low cost item and will be suitable for lighter works such as bolting a timber stud to a wall.

Next are heavy duty 10mm anchors, the first after the Sleeve Anchor is a genuine Rawl brand anchor, then a Hub brand and a Eureka packed but not branded anchor, that has a DS logo on it.

As we can see there are many ways of doing a job.


A simple fabricated metal support bracket that will hold a laminated 68mmx 228mm treated pine cross beam, has been firmly bolted to a brick wall. In this case all loads are down, so the four 10mm bolts are in shear.

Note, when it is required to remove one plate so that a cross beam can be inserted, the sockets will remain in the wall, they will be nice and tight after you have taken the slack up in the first fixing. When refitting and by mistake you push the treaded socket off the back of the wall anchor, used a threaded rod the same size at the bolt, feed it in slowly, then when the thread insert is reached, turn the threaded rod untill you can pull the thread insert back into the outer socket. You can then remove the threaded rod and fit the bolt proper.

Some brands in the USA can cause costs and related bothers, there the brand known as Rawl, is an Imperial size and the masonary drill bits are quite low cost but if they use a brand name called Hilti (german?) the drill bits are sized in metric and are really costly to purchase in the USA, so check the numbers out before you buy!


Roy