Wall fixing for 90mm plasterboard

Payton

I'm installing metal curtain poles in my daughters house which has 90mm insulation plasterboard on top of blocks. What would be the best fixings to put them up with. I'm thinking drilling through to the block and hammer in an express nail and rawplug into the opening of the express nail.
What are others views/experiences?

DublinDilbert

Express nail is a good job for this. Often I’d use an express nail for the top screw, and a plaster board rail plug for the bottom one.

whizbang

Except if you hit the precast concrete head over the window...
Can be a bit difficult to predict where the head is, with insulation etc.

jmBuildExt

Never done it - but I'd imagine it would be hard to get an express nail flush without hitting the surface of the plasterboard.
That's just my experience with them anyway. I've only used them outside to nail battons to the wall for fences/gate posts, the timber has always suffered a few blows.

Saying that, I've never had to fix anything through 90mm plasterboard either. its a fair distance for a screw to be left hanging out of rawl plugs if you were to go that way.

Payton

I came across this which looks pretty sturdy and the same principle.
https://youtu.be/7DGGUbbbBZI

DublinDilbert

jmBuildExt wrote: »

Never done it - but I'd imagine it would be hard to get an express nail flush without hitting the surface of the plasterboard.
That's just my experience with them anyway. I've only used them outside to nail battons to the wall for fences/gate posts, the timber has always suffered a few blows.

Saying that, I've never had to fix anything through 90mm plasterboard either. its a fair distance for a screw to be left hanging out of rawl plugs if you were to go that way.

Nah its pretty easy actually, they just tap in quite gently and finish flush with the plaster. I've used this method to hang radiators also, never had a problem. Also when you screw the bracket tight, its not crushing the plaster board, it rests on the flaired head of the express nail.

Just make sure the curtain rail is the correct height for standard lenght curtains, you don't want to be moving it up and down.

Lumen

I'm sure an express nail + rawl + screw is great for shear, but isn't the pull-out strength terrible? Even if the express nail is well anchored, the rawlplug is sitting inside a smooth metal tube.

Payton

Well I drilled the holes and hammered the express nails (150mm) in until the collar was flush with the plaster. A dab of pink grip into the express nail and pushed a red rawplug in and screwed in the brackets for the metal curtain poles and it worked perfect.

slave1

Job done so, personally since I started using concrete screws I've never look back, one of the best pieces of kit over the last few years

William Legrande

I recently bought some 'Gripit Corefix' fixings on eBay to hang a headboard on a wall with a gap between the block and the plasterboard. Not cheap and I ended up having to buy a new, longer SDS bit, but they do a great job.

jmBuildExt

slave1 wrote: »

Job done so, personally since I started using concrete screws I've never look back, one of the best pieces of kit over the last few years

SAw them for the first time few months back - Ones on screw fix say "self drilling" - i assume you need some kind of pilot hole?