Fastening to external walls
Items that are fixed to external walls, such as one end of a garden clothes line or a gate post, need very strong fixings. Usually, special devices called Rawl bolts or expansion bolts are used on solid walls. These are made of metal and expand, exerting great pressure when a bolt is tightened into them. Various types are available, some with bolt heads and others with hooks or eyes. The holes involved are larger than those for wall plugs, so you may have to borrow a larger masonry drill or a handheld star drill and a club hammer.
Fastening to interior walls
Brick walls are the simplest to fix things to. If covered with plaster, remember that the plaster itself has no strength, so your fixing must go into the solid masonry beneath.
Drill a hole with a masonry drill, having decided on the size of screw and wall plug you'll need. The three are related, and many plug packs incorporate a simple gauge to help you relate all three items. The hole should be slightly deeper than the length of plug and the plug should be a tight fit so that it doesn't turn in the hole as you screw.
Walls made of concrete blocks are often fairly soft or have a coarse open structure; use special wall plugs for fixing shelves.
Many modern internal walls are constructed of plasterboard sheets nailed to timbers, or of special hollow partitioning consisting of two sheets of plasterboard separated by a honeycomb divider and supported internally with timbers. Plasterboard itself is not strong enough to take any form of screw, so a special hollow fixing device is needed to form an anchored wall plug into which the screw can be driven. There are various types, from those that are lost if the item fixed is removed, to those that are held in place by a special strip. Check this point when buying them.
Where a very heavy cabinet is to be fixed to a hollow partition, use heavy duty wall anchors. In addition, locate two convenient vertical timbers inside ' the wall and screw a horizontal batten to them on which you can rest the cabinet. You can locate the hidden timbers with a stud or timber-seeking tool. Usually this is a combination tool which will find metals and supporting timbers hidden in a surface. It indicates either by noise, by a light or by both.
