Rogues Gallery

In my opinion the ‘plastic plugs and coachbolts’ method of dish fixing is suitable for minidishes only. In fact I won’t even use this fixing method for minidishes, but I know lots of people do. The strength of an expansion fixing like this is limited by the strength of the bricks.

The experienced installer knows as soon as he starts to drill how strong the bricks are. Bricks like these will produce dark red dust; the drill bit will plunge in effortlessly, and it will be obvious that the brick has very little strength. In this case the installer has made the holes near the edges or corners of the brick, which of course makes failure even more likely. I would think that these bricks cracked as the bolts were tightened, and the installer would have known at that point that the fixings had no strength. The installation was only a year old when it failed.

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