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I'm renting a flat where the bathroom walls are layered with what I guess is extruded polystyrene. The external grey layer is lacquered and rigid with some kind of plastic mesh underneath but the pink part is pretty soft (my nail goes in easily). The polystyren is against the wall, as I can see.

Picture of the layer

The problem, all the furnitures are screwed in it, and one of them fell when we put 'too much weight' on it.

Hi Hello

Based on my intuition and short research, I'm inclined to think that this is a crappy way to attach those furniture to that type of wall and that it was gonna fall at some point (and I am kinda scared for the other ones in the room). It wouldn't be the only problematic screw in the flat...

So now I'm wondering if:

  • It was a job well done and thus my fault the thing fell. I have to put it back, potentially using the same kind of plugs.
  • It was badly done. But I could still try to put the furniture back using better plugs (toggle bolts or molly ? But then there's no space behind it...).
  • It was badly done and there's no good way to attach it back without going into the wall behind. I should probably let my landlord handle it, else I create more problems that would be my responsability.
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    your landlord is responsible for rectifying the unsafe situation Commented 2 days ago
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    is "furniture" a translation issue? Do you mean things that you sit on like sofas? Wall mounts will never support much cantilvered weight, no matter how well anchored. Commented 2 days ago
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    A small shelf fell down but the sink and the vanity cabinet are attached to the wall in similar way. Commented 2 days ago
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    "furniture" means things like chairs, tables etc. Perhaps "fixture" or "fitting" would be more accurate here, if it's things like shelves? Commented yesterday
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    Really weird to enclose a room in extruded polystyrene. Commented yesterday

3 Answers 3

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So use longer drills to drill into the wall and fit the plugs into the wall. Then you need screws that are the correct length.

Any method that relies on the polystyrene and top mesh is guaranteed to fail.

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    +1, Also, beware of drilling into water pipes or electrical conduits that may be embedded in the wall. I don't know how to detect such things inside of concrete; I usually try to estimate their locations, and only drill where I think that there can't be anything. Even then, I've had some unhappy experiences. Commented yesterday
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Additionally to @SolarMike 's answer:

The screws need to be thicker, in order to withstand the bending forces - since the furniture is away from the wall. Otherwise you risk the screw physically breaking, with the same final result - the furniture falling.

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Make up your mind on what you want: Do you want to do this? Do you want to rent a flat where things get done without you having to do them? What responsibilities, risks and costs are you willing to carry?

Speak to your landlord. Communicate clearly what you expect and what you're willing to do, e.g. "I can try fixing it. To do that, I'd ... . However I don't take any responsibility, if things go wrong.".

The correct way to do it translates to "wall anchor", which is just a fancy word for oversized plugs and screws: Basically, what Solar Mike and virolino are saying. The wall anchors in the hardware store down the street look like 8-10mm diameter machine screws that have a plug of up to 10-15cm length intended to go into the wall.

Also since this is a bathroom, you might want to fill in gaps with silicone to keep the wall moisture free.

To address the comment by Conrado: Copper pipes and electric lines can be found with appropriate equipment. Some hardware stores rent that out. I have a cheap multimeter (20-30€) that includes the basic functionality for electric lines. The feature is called "NCV". However I just checked and it doesn't work for pipes.

Actually you can find electric lines with an arduino, a piece of unshielded wire plugged into an analog pin and a pull-down resistor but that's another project.

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    It doesn't matter if I want to fix it or not. What mattered the most is knowing what is the the proper way to attach it, which determines if I was responsible for it falling down or not. If it had been 100% on my head, then I would have had to find a way to put it back using the advice given to me (or pay someone to do it). Now that we established that it wasn't attached correctly, I can shift the responsability to my landlord. Whether he wants me to try to fix it or call a professionnal, that's his call to make. Commented yesterday
  • Ah yes, NCV is good for finding electrical lines, I forgot about that (and haven't actually used it through concrete). Commented 8 hours ago

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