Attaching wooden batten to concrete floor.

[MikeL44]

Hi all. My daughter has a bungalow built between 1983 and 1990. There is a fitted wardrobe in one of the bedrooms. The bottom runner is laying on a chipboard batten, but the runner has come loose, so the doors will not slide. I tried to replace the screws for the runner into the batten, but the batten itself has detached from the concrete floor. My thought is to use hammer in frame fittings through the metal runner, the batten and about 20 or 30 mm into the floor. But I'm worried if there might be any pipes under there. The alternative is to take off the doors and glue the batten, but they are really heavy mirrored glass doors and I'd rather avoid that if I can as I'm not sure how they are fitted in the runners.

Would appreciate any advice. Is it likely that there could be central heating or water pipes under the surface? Thanks!

 

[Tigercubrider]

I’d be worried about screwing into an unknown concrete floor. You could hit a pipe, possibly breach the DPM.

You could use building adhesive to secure the batten down?
Is there room to fit a wider batten to the floor?
If you can hide a batten inside the base of the wardrobe you’ll have a larger surface area to use building adhesive

 

[^woody^]

Heating or water pipes tend not to be randomly placed in floor screed. You can normally see where the heating pipes are going from the radiators and work out where the water pipes are going by the locations of the taps. They typically go above ceilings.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

but the batten itself has detached from the concrete floor.

Bare concrete is not usual. Likely it will be screeded, or poured pitch - both of which are quite soft to fix to. In a bungalow, pipes, and cables usually run in the ceiling, then down the walls, where there is a solid floor. A metal detector, would help to confirm there are no pipes set in the floor.

A suitable adhesive might be a safer bet, if you can get to below the batten. Doors often run on rollers/tracks at the base, taking the weight. with just a guide at the top, which prevents the door being lifted off the track. Remove the guide, and the door comes out.

 

[robinbanks]

I’ve several sliding wardrobe doors on tiled and LVT’d floors, below which is a screed that definitely contains UFH heating pipes. I’ve used Sticks Like on all my tracks instead of mechanical fixings into the screed and not had a single issue with it detaching so far

 

[noseall]

Hi all. My daughter has a bungalow built between 1983 and 1990. There is a fitted wardrobe in one of the bedrooms. The bottom runner is laying on a chipboard batten, but the runner has come loose, so the doors will not slide. I tried to replace the screws for the runner into the batten, but the batten itself has detached from the concrete floor. My thought is to use hammer in frame fittings through the metal runner, the batten and about 20 or 30 mm into the floor. But I'm worried if there might be any pipes under there. The alternative is to take off the doors and glue the batten, but they are really heavy mirrored glass doors and I'd rather avoid that if I can as I'm not sure how they are fitted in the runners.

Would appreciate any advice. Is it likely that there could be central heating or water pipes under the surface? Thanks!

Turn the heating on and have a feel.

 

[^woody^]

Turn the heating on and have a feel.

I just suggested that to Mrs W, but she was more concerned about the gas bill.