h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Another question concearning the kitchen in our house:

The walls in this part of the building are about 100 years old and made of field stones and mortar, covered with plaster. We are now searching for the right way to hang up cupboards on these walls.

The two possibilities we have found so far are
1) injecting a special mortar into the wall around the places where the screws and anchors should be
2) special heavy load anchors which they tell us can be used for stone walls

Has anyone of you ever done such an thing? What did you use? How well did it work?

Hello Tav

I have used very successfuly the metpost anchor bolt (or anchbolt the trade name) if you have thick morter joints you are best drilling into the stone. The bolt expands as you tighten it and locks into the hole.

Hope it helps

P's your home sounds as if it is traditional "lovely"

Could you get some freestanding cabinets for the things you would put in cupboards?

Thanks a lot bob! That's one of the things we thought would work and you could confirm it.
Maybe I can write about it in the Post once eerything is over.

We will mostly do that, paul, but in some cases we don't get around hanging cupboards because if we don't we would have no worktops.

I echo Bob's recommendation of anchor bolts. They're holding up my heavy garden gate.

Yup, me too, very strong.


Make sure you use a good hammer drill, don't ask how I know that a rechargable cordless drill doesn't cut it when drilling into stone

It's not a Grade II listed building is it?

Thanks a lot for all your opinions!
Question is: what if we hit exactly a joint between stones? There are some rather large parts of mortar in some places and you can't know where they are without taking all plaster off the walls.

Im not completely familiar with the British Grades of buildings, but it's not protected for a specific historic value or anything. Plenty of houses like that around here.

Is your mortar hard or dose it crumble easily it might pay to ask the diy center.

I have seen cupboards hung from vertical battens that bridge the mortar gaps. once the cupboards are positioned they can not be seen.

You might want to consider Epoxy Anchors http://www.us.hilti.com/anchors

I have used them for some situations that were not suitable for expansion bolts such as limited edge distance.

F S