Plasterboard Fixings

Plasterboard Fixings

Plasterboard will not hold an ordinary wall plug, because there is nothing solid behind it to expand against. A plasterboard fixing works by spreading its load on the far side of the board instead, and the type you need follows the weight and whether you will ever want to take it down. Plasterboard plugs are the lightest option, pushed or screwed into the board to give a threaded socket, and they suit picture hooks, cable clips and small brackets. Self drill metal fixings cut their own hole and thread straight into the board without pre-drilling, which makes them the quickest choice for light to medium items and the most forgiving if you are working alone. Cavity fixings, sold here as Interset, work differently again: the sleeve collapses and folds flat against the back of the board as the screw tightens, which spreads the load across a much wider area and gives the highest pull-out strength of the three. That is what a heavy mirror, a shelf or a wall-mounted radiator needs. Cavity fixings are sized by thread and length, and the length must suit the board thickness plus the void, so check both. One rule overrides all of this: anything genuinely heavy, such as a TV bracket or kitchen wall unit, should be fixed into the timber studs behind the board rather than into the board at all.

Rawlplug supplies the whole range. Plasterboard plugs come in 7mm in packs of 10, 20 and 50. Self drill metal plasterboard fixings come in a pack of 12. Interset cavity fixings are stocked in M4 at 32mm, 38mm and 46mm and in M5 at 37mm and 52mm, each in packs of six. For fixings into masonry and general wall plugs see Prepacked Fittings, and for board screws Drywall Screws.