can't get a wall anchor to stay in

I am trying to put up some new curtain rails. I have successfully managed to drill holes and put in the usual plastic wall anchors everywhere except one side of one window.

The walls are plaster on brick (house is a 1950s brick semi-detached). I thought it was my anaemic cordless drill, perhaps, so I bought myself a corded one with hammer action. This worked great everywhere except in this one spot where I am losing my mind.

I can only get an inch or so into the wall before I hit something too hard to drill, even with a relatively new masonry bit. I moved the holes over an inch or so and hit the same thing. I tried just using a shorter wall anchor but of course the plaster just crumbles away and falls out, making a bigger hole. Then I tried cleaning the hole, spritzing it with water, and filling it with "no more nails" type adhesive with the wall anchor embedded in it and letting it cure overnight, but the whole thing just popped out when I tried to put the screw in.

The room has one large window, then a gap of about 4 feet, and then a smaller window. In the middle of the gap there is an air brick. The problem area is on the right of the large window, about a foot from the air brick. I thought that maybe there was something associated with the air brick that I was hitting there, but I had no problems drilling into the wall on the other side of the air brick.

I'm about ready to just staple the curtains to the wall.

Chances are you are hitting metal in the wall probably either rebar or rsj which a masonry bit will not drill

Have you tried switching to a metal (hss) bit?

The other alternative is to affix a batten to the wall first then attach your curtain rail to the batten

it maybe a lintel or even a metal plate, or metal rsj, i'm just a diyer, but my daughters house has a metal right angle strip of metal across patio doors and a lintel.
is the hole very deep at all , you maybe able to use a resin to fix, but

If you are hitting a rebar in a concrete lintel the good news is that there are number of SDS bits that can cut through smaller diameter rebars

They are often the types with a four point head.

eg the following is a video for a Hilti bit but the likes of Bosch, Makita, etc make them as well


I purchased a set of Makita Nemesis drill bits last year after a lintel rebar broke the head off a Bosch SDS bit whilst I was drilling curtain fittings . The Nemesis cut through the rebar without issue. They have now become my go to drill bits, not only does the point seems to reduce wandering, the seem to be a tad faster as well.

Cost wise they were only about 50% more expensive than regular branded 2 flute drill bits.

These are the ones that I purchased

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Makita-B-16938-Nemesis-Plus-Drill/dp/B006C14JAS

Ignore the product description- someone has added the wrong description.

You can get dedicated rebar cutters but they are often much, much larger in diameter and about £100 each.

Given that you have made a mess of the existing hole you might want to use a longer screw, one that ensures that you are well into the brickwork. when face with such holes I use two wall plugs. I push the first one in and hammer a screw into it so that it is buried into the brick work and then use anther plug for the plaster section. yeah, perhaps I should just buy extra long plugs in the first place, but it works (most of the time).

sounds like metal. buy a decent quality metal drill bit (Dormer ideally) and drill it slowly with a bit of oil on the end to keep it cool. Once broken through the metal it will continue to drill brick or concrete if its its a good drill bit. but then admittedly it will probably be blunt for anything else so will need sharpening.

I like the batton option, this is probably cheaper and will cover the unneeded hole.

I promptly went out of town after my initial post so apologies for not following up earlier.

The metal aspect confuses me. Why is there metal only on one side of one window? I'm drilling about 6 inches away from the window opening itself. Is it a bad idea to drill into the metal if it is reinforcing a concrete lintel?

Mander said:

I promptly went out of town after my initial post so apologies for not following up earlier.

The metal aspect confuses me. Why is there metal only on one side of one window? I'm drilling about 6 inches away from the window opening itself. Is it a bad idea to drill into the metal if it is reinforcing a concrete lintel?

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Your local town must be miles away if it's took you 2.5 weeks to get there and back

Well I went out of town for work and then holiday, so I was busy and miles away from the wall in question.

Mander said:

The metal aspect confuses me. Why is there metal only on one side of one window? I'm drilling about 6 inches away from the window opening itself. Is it a bad idea to drill into the metal if it is reinforcing a concrete lintel?

Click to expand...

Lintels have more than one rebar and you are drilling it at the farther end. Personally, I wouldn't be worried.

If your curtain rail/pole was a couple of inches longer in length you may have ended up missing the lintel all together.

If it is rebar in your lintel and you moved sideways and still had problems then it could be the same bar, try up or down instead. I know what would happen to me though - the other side will now hit one when you level up.
For rock hard concrete lintel's I always start with a very small drill and work up which also helps stop the hole getting too big in the plaster section,--- you know when you hit the hard lintel and you start pushing harder and end up going at angles as you push and the entry plaster part starts to get messy.

If it is a metal lintel then a long self tapper in a small hole works well.