Drilling Tips

Im in the process of what i thought was going to be an easy job of putting up a curtain rail in the living room. I am in an old ex council house in Crumlin. While drilling the holes i am coming across loose stones in the wall and when they start moving it all goes downhill rapidly. I am left with a nice big hole in the wall instead of 3 small ones!
I was going to fill the hole with polyfilla and try again but i'm not sure if it will hold the weight. Any ideas of whats the best way of proceeding from here? (Yes! i am a very novice DIYer)

I came across something similar once and I used timber to plug the holes and screw directly into the timber.

Drill hole, get a piece of wood that is a tight fit for the hole score the piece of wood so that it will break off level with the wall, hammer in the plug and then tap off the protruding end, fill in with filler if needed. Repeat wherever you intend to use a screw.

Never thought of that! Nice idea thanks

Hi,

I came across a similar problem when trying to hang up coat hangars on a wall in a 100 year old house. As I started drilling little stones started coming out of the wall and it appeared that the wall plaster (or what was underneath it) was a mix of sand/cement/pebbles. I think it is just what was available back when the house was built.

What I did, and it worked really well, was to cut small squares of wood and nailed these onto the wall, covering the holes I had made. I found that the nails held the wood very securely to the wall. All I did then was drill holes in the wood and secured the coat hangars to the wood.

We have lots of coats on the coat hangars, plus I would say that it could take a lot more weight.

Padhraic

There's nothing new in the good solutions suggested! Timber "plugs" and "grounds" were used for making fixings in masonry walls long before nylon plugs and hammer drills came on the scene! Just to add to this- a small bit of PVA or polyurethane adhesive (better by far) on the end of the timber wedge or plug will guarantee a very sound fixing.