Radiator and insulated plasterboard with DPM

[MisterFish]

I am refurbing a bedroom.

There has been a damp problem which, in the end, I had a damp guy in to look at. (Damp guy as in does the damp surveys for English Heritage and the National trust rather than as in bloke selling damp treatments).

As a result I am fitting a damp proof membrane to a wall topped with 30mm insulated plasterboard, (dabbed and screwed directly to the wall).

It is on to this wall that I want to attach a radiator.

Now, I have an injectable that will take care of any bridging problem with the membrane. What I don't really know how to do is attach the radiator brackets to the wall.

Standard plasterboard fixings don't seem right because of the insulated board, (both in terms of stuffing the insulation and of hanging a rad off what is essentially a layer of polystyrene). Drilling through all of that and trying to place rawlpugs into the wall through it all feels a lot like advanced gynecology.

This can't be the first time this ha happened, is there a standard operating procedure for doing this?

Help appreciated.

 

[mogget]

The standard '4 wing' pb fixers work ok for ordinary panel rads, anything much heavier and you'll be needing to do some strengthening.

 

[mogget]

If its just dot and dabbed to the wall though you'll need to fix it securely.

 

[Bitzerdisandat]

Fixing onto a dot and dab wall can be fun! Mark the brackets and do one fixing at a time. It all depends on where the dabs are and how heavy the rad is. If you hit a dab, then it's plugs and screws. If you hit a void, then try to get a 5 point umbrella fixing in. If it's too long, run a 7mm sds drill bit through to get the depth. If it's only a light rad, then you could get away with double screw fixings on the voids.