Find out the wall materials.

The  building material of the fixing base, such as wall, ceiling or floor, is the most important individual factor connected to choosing the right fixing. Often, there is a coat of paint, wallpaper, putty, plaster or acoustic board on the building material, hiding the load-bearing building material or material suitable for fixing behind it.

THERE IS HELP AVAILABLE FOR IDENTIFYING THE WALL MATERIAL!

If you have difficulties identifying the building material of the fixing base, you can try to find out the material with the help of the building manager, caretaker, previous owners or a knowledgeable neighbour. Especially in the case of newer homes, there may also be a building use and maintenance manual available, listing the building materials. In newer homes, the building material of the fixing base is probably concrete or thin-walled building board, such as gypsum plasterboard.

The year of construction of the wall in question also has effects on the strength of concrete and brick walls, as different techniques and materials of varying quality have naturally been used in construction over the years. When fixing heavy objects, you should try to find out the thickness of any plaster coat because it is recommended to be make the fixing into the load-bearing and/or fixed wall layer, not porous, poor-quality plaster.

In the case of building boards, the strength of the board surface and installation point of the fixing are also influenced by the timber or metal structures behind the board surface, such as battens. Nowadays, the locations of battens and electric wires can also be investigated using diverse structure detectors, which can be rented from construction machine rental companies. Learn about the range of structure detectors of our partner Bosch here. You can also investigate the hollowness of a wall or other structures and locations of any battens by lightly tapping the wall.

Click “Read more…” to access videos that help you to identify different wall materials based on the dust from drilling.