# Shower Rail attachment to weak wall.



## MichaelW2 (15 Oct 2022)

Having panelled the shower with hollow UPVC panels I need to fit a shower curtain rail ( not an enclosure).
The hollow panel is dot and dabbed onto a wall with old victorian plaster about 2cm thick.
10mm hollow upcv
5mm dot and dab space
20mm old plaster.
Then victorian red brick.

The rail needs to flow in an L shape with one curtain, no interruptions.
I got one from Screwfix : Croydex Slenderline that says use the supplied rawlplugs only for solid masonry
I thought about extended 12mm wooden plugs and screws but then looked at M4 bolts. 
How about some aluminium m4 sleeve 7mm outer diam about 50mm length embedded into the wall ( gorilla glue) that extends to the surface of the upvc panel so it cinches tight onto metal not weak upvc.

Never heard of this used before so flying this kite as a sanity check.


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## CXRAndy (15 Oct 2022)

Just use 4" or 5" no 6 stainless screws drilled into brickwork. Use two rawplugs per screw. As long as get enough penetration into the brick work, it will be super strong. 
I'm just preparing a shower room. Fitting all the extra woodwork behind the Abacus Elements board for shower screen and shower head fittings


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## MichaelW2 (15 Oct 2022)

CXRAndy said:


> Just use 4" or 5" no 6 stainless screws drilled into brickwork. Use two rawplugs per screw. As long as get enough penetration into the brick work, it will be super strong.
> I'm just preparing a shower room. Fitting all the extra woodwork behind the Abacus Elements board for shower screen and shower head fittings



You cannot tighten screws onto upvc hollow panels. The advice is to fill with some packing eg wood or additional screw. 

The two mounting holes are so close together I think the drill will skip or open out one big hole.


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## Jameshow (15 Oct 2022)

Drill hole through to brick, inject with stick like poo until won't take any more, leave for 24hrs then screw into it?


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## classic33 (15 Oct 2022)

What about these?










If you're considering using the interest type, drill the hole deep enough to take the full length of the bolt.

Other than those, I'd be tempted to use one of the three in the bottom right hand corner of the first picture. They'd open out behind the plastic, spreading the load.


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## slowmotion (15 Oct 2022)

Jameshow said:


> Drill hole through to brick, inject with stick like poo until won't take any more, leave for 24hrs then screw into it?



Go one better. Drill back to the brickwork and use a polyester resin anchor system.

Edit: You can get small resin anchor cartridges from Toolstation or Screwfix. You don't have to splurge £20+ on specialised resin anchor guns.


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## newts (15 Oct 2022)

A difficult situation to overcome with a shower rail that has a small fixing area on the bracket. There will always be sag/drop between the brick/multiple soft layers & finally the fixing brackets


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## Gwylan (15 Oct 2022)

T


classic33 said:


> What about these?
> View attachment 664744
> 
> 
> ...



The red thingie in the picture. Worked us.

Or tell the walk to man up and take the pain!


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## newts (16 Oct 2022)

https://www.fischer.co.uk/en-gb/pro...astic-fixings/duopower/538241-duopower-8-x-65. 

These will support the screw through the upvc cladding without crushing it when the screw tightens. They do require 4.5mm x 75mm screws which may be too big in diameter for the curtain rail brackets. The L shaped rail means there is a high leverage force trying to pull the fixings out, shorter wall plugs won't be strong enough to cope in the cladding/plasterboard.


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## Adam4868 (16 Oct 2022)

Use whatever length rawplug you can drill into your wall,getting a good fixing into the brick.Put a bit of silicone around the holes also.Ive used similar to this before through panels,can't really visualize your fixing point but use a washer if you've room.


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## sheddy (16 Oct 2022)

I had similar (but as it was an internal wall with built in wardrobes on the other side) I used 6mm studding with nuts and washers.
There was a white plastic cap to cover the nut.


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## CXRAndy (16 Oct 2022)

MichaelW2 said:


> You cannot tighten screws onto upvc hollow panels. The advice is to fill with some packing eg wood or additional screw.
> 
> The two mounting holes are so close together I think the drill will skip or open out one big hole.



You don't need to tighten beyond nipping up the bracket to the surface. If the pvc is that flimsy, removal and packing behind to fill the void. Else further work will be required


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## MichaelW2 (30 Oct 2022)

I got some brass "standoffs". 7mm hex exterior, M4 thread internal, 60mm length.
I am drilling a pair of 8mm holes per bracket.
Use gorilla glue as an anchor glue. I have notched the brass surface for grip.
Testing it out on a sample brick and panel scrap. It should be strong enough.
Fix the 2 brackets with M4 bolts.


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## Profpointy (30 Oct 2022)

I used the m5 toggle fittings shown in classic's post above (for pic 2). The snag was the clearance hole, drilled in tiles remember, needed to be too big so it would have been visible, so instead I cut a hole maybe 2" diameter with a hole saw through the plasterboard wall behind. As you can't see (in pic 3) after I replaced the disc removed and polyfillered. The other was in stone (pic 4)so used hefty rawlplugs for that. I had to buy nice stainless screws with identical heads - some m5 and the other set normal screws


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