Wall Material and Shelving

[wallquerier]

I want to mount bookshelves on an internal wall in a mid-90s build apartment. I plan to use the metal vertical rails with brackets and fill them with books - so it will be heavy.

Here's the problem - I can't determine what kind of wall material it is. If I knock on it, it sounds hollow, or at least more hollow than the external walls. But if I drill into it, it seems to be solid all the way through to the next room - about 6 inches. I have tried this in three separate locations, 6 inches apart vertically and horizontally, to check if I was drilling into wooden battens.

Does anyone have any clue as to what kind of wall this is? And if it would support heavy bookshelves?

Many thanks for any advice.
D.

 

[roy c]

Put a bracket against the wall mark where the top hole is going and drill a hole deep enough to take a decent sized rawl -plug that you should get before you start or you can use a rawl bolt then put your plug in the hole and put a washer on the screw and tighten it up. It should grab the bracket and pull it tight to the wall and should be very well fixed. If it moves about and the bracket is sloppy then either the wall is crape or you used the wrong sized rawl plug .

 

[wallquerier]

Thanks.

Any idea what the wall material might be then?

 

[roy c]

Not without seeing a pic..

 

[wallquerier]

Not sure what pic I could send that would help. Pictures of walls tend to be a bit - well - flat...

But from the description at the start (6" thick, seemingly solid, but sounds hollow when tapped (or is that just because it's not that thick?)), what do you reckon the possibilities are?

I'm only pushing this point because I want to know how much weight the wall will take. I've put up pictures etc before on these walls with screws and rawlplugs, and they hold up perfectly firmly. But that's nothing like the weight of floor to ceiling bookshelves, densely packed.

 

[roy c]

Ok you are drilling in 6" and hitting the other wall ,Right If so then your wall is 4" block,brick or thermalite block and a 2" cavity. Now we have got to decide what your wall is made of, When you drill into the wall does the drill bit go in easy? And what size bit and how thick is it. If the drill bit goes in easy then it is a thermalite wall. If you have quite a lot of resisstance on the drill and it takes a while to get thru then you have either brick or Concrete block, (You might have cinder block and there shouldn't be too much ressistance on them. ) so find out yourself what it is likely to be.

 

[wallquerier]

Thanks for the advice.

I drilled initially with a regular 4mm bit. Then continued with a longer masonry bit of about the same diameter, but much longer - to see how far it would go (i.e. to the other side of the wall, about 6").

The resistance felt uniform all the way, until it came through the other side. And it went in pretty easily. (Incidentally, I did drill into an external wall a while back, and the difference when it hit brick or concrete was obvious.)

So I guess by your analysis there, that would likely make it thermalite. If that's true, do you think that's ok to mount heavy shelving on?

 

[roy c]

It is very difficult to get a good fixing on thermalites, some time if it is scratched and floated with sand and cement then you are likely to get a better fixing as the s/c is stronger than the block. But this is probably unlikely in your case I would not put my neck on the line and say just put the brackets on , I would suggest having a look on you tube or google unless anyone else on here knows of any decent fixings.. Hope this helps,

 

[wallquerier]

Ok, thanks. More research needed then..