Welcome back to Test Tuesday! Today I’m testing light duty plasterboard fittings to see how much load they can actually handle. These little plugs are only for very light items in drywall such as pictures and mirrors.
Watch the full video here:
Light duty plasterboard fittings
My go-to fixing for lightweight stuff in drywall is these little Fischer drywall plugs. They have a number of advantages over other fittings:
- They only require a 6mm hole in the drywall
- They can be used with a wide variety of screws
- They have decent holding strength for lightweight items
- If you want to remove them they don’t mangle the wall up too much
- They’re not self-drilling so less likely to damage pipes or cables in the wall
Test results
I struggled to find an official Fischer datasheet for these fittings but they did suggest they were for use around the 2kg mark, which is fine for pictures, smaller mirrors etc. Here are the results from my very unscientific little test:
- Peak pull-out (axial) load: 13.2kg
- Peak shear load (test #1): 32.7kg
- Peak shear load (test #2): 42kg!
Want imperial units? There’s a converter over on the right… or at the bottom, depending on what you’re using to read this. Yes, 42kg or shear load before the plasterboard failed! That’s 20 times the recommended loading!! Really impressed. Great little plug for day-to-day use. Great for lightweight stuff in dot & dab. Next stage up from this is to use the proper expanding fittings discussed before, however Fischer are constantly evolving so watch this space for tests of newer fittings!
As per usual, don’t use my results for actual loadings. My tests are very unscientific and you should never go past the manufacturer’s recommended loadings, which in this case is around 2kg.
- Emissions from Wood Burning Stoves - 1 December 2022
- Wood Burning Stoves for Beginners - 1 December 2022
- How to create a Soundproof Ceiling - 12 September 2022