Wall-mount sink on plaster wall
so bob, i just checked a 1915 industrial catalog. it gets more interesting. “bits” are what go in the hand brace – the wood augers with the chamfered squarish shaft. “Drills” are the modern twist drills that we put in the electric drill. by this time the electric drill had been invented though i am not sure it was in common use.
stevecym
in General Discussion 4 years and 10 months ago
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mstamib
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
Hi everyone. We are renovating a small second-floor bathroom in a 1901 brownstone and want to use either a pedestal or wall-mounted sink. The wall to which the sink would be mounted is plaster. (Currently, there is a sink there with a large vanity/cabinet thing, which we haven’t removed yet.) What do we need to know and what should we be thinking about in installing something that is mounted on the wall here? Thank you !
stevecym | 4 years and 11 months ago
years ago i watched a plumber mount a sink to a bathroom wall. the edge of the sink rested on a metal bracket. that bracket has to be mounted to studs in the wall. that much i can tell you.
with respect to what i say above, a lot has changed since i saw this done. a lot. so maybe they don’t mount that way anymore, i do not know. everything we see now seems to have a vanity under it.
mstamib
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
Thanks. I think wall-mounted sinks are typically mounted to studs or wood framing attached to studs, but I don’t think we have studs behind the plaster–that’s why I am wondering how these things would be mounted…
Guest User | 4 years and 11 months ago
there have to be studs, otherwise you wouldn’t have a wall…
i think you should expect a fair amount of damage to the plaster that is currently hiding behind the existing vanity and you might need to do some replacement work there before putting up a new sink.
stevecym | 4 years and 11 months ago
is this going on an exterior wall, with plaster right to the brick? so you can drill holes not only into the plaster but clear through and into the brick and mount with anchors. i often use the cheap plastic ones but i toss the screws they sell in the kits and i buy longer ones to really get into the underlying and stronger wall. if it crumbles while doing this, i insert a thick epoxy, the stick type, and then push the anchor into it and get the screw in before it all hardens.
the wall between our bathroom and bedroom has something between it that i would not call studs. more like heavy firring strips. but it holds the wall up. would i trust these to support something heavy, perhaps not. it might hold it until someone leans on it.
there are other ways to hang things on walls which have compromised integrity. if op comes back on and tells what they think the situation really is, maybe this can be parsed out-
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
I think exterior walls in brownstones usually have studs and a small air space between the brick, but party walls have the plaster applied right to the brick. Anchors would work there.
yudashasom | 4 years and 11 months ago
Interior plaster is most commonly applied over wood lathe and studs. Anyone installing this should know what to do.
mstamib
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
Thanks all. This is unfortunately not an interior wall. It’s the wall at the top of the stairs-when you are going up the stairs, it would be the wall you are facing. I am not sure what kinds of supports are in the wall.
stevecym | 4 years and 11 months ago
so it is the rear wall. see what i said before and see what bobs says. some houses have plaster on brick and some it is “sticked” (firred). if you hang a bracket on something sticked, you have to land the screws onto the sticking. but since the sticking us usually crap, i would drill holes and use anchors into the underlying brick. But pray it is plaster on brick. this would be easiest. also, some houses they stick the front and rear walls and then lay the plaster with lath but will lay the sidewall plaster right to the brick. if this goes in a corner, can you put the bracket on the sidewall, assuming that was plaster on brick.
and i would not be misled by what bob says about calling the sticking on the brick studs. with all respect to his experience, most of what i have seen is crappy old firing, not studs.
you have to find out what you are dealing with. if you are thinking of doing this yourself, finding out how the wall is constructed should be no issue. i just banged on the wall next to me where i am typing this and it sounded hollow, that mean s it is sticked. if i tap the wall behind me, the common wall between me and my neighbor, it will be plaster on brick and will not make any sound when i tap it.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
I’m sure Steve’s right about the lack of studs on outside walls; I made an assumption because I knew there was lath and some space between plaster and brick.
Regarding using anchors on plaster applied directly to plaster on brick—make sure to use LONG anchors and screws. I learned the hard way! I installed bookshelves using ordinary lead anchors and they fell because I had only drilled into thh by e plaster. I then got VERY long anchors and made sure to drill well into the brick. The shelves, holding heavy books, have remained in place for >45 years. BTW—O don’t trust plastic anchors. Are lead ones still available? Am I being overly cautious?
brokelin | 4 years and 11 months ago
Once you explore what’s in the wall, and you think you can get it installed but won’t feel good about people leaning on it, consider using a style of sink the you can support from the front as well. Wall hung sinks with 2 steel legs in front (or sometimes 2 ceramic legs with some old or reproduction sink styles) give some more support to the sink, I believe – at least, they appear to. Might be worth exploring.
While I like the old, wall-hung sinks without supports (had an old cast iron one in one rental that I liked a lot, despite the chips in the white enamel near the drain), the ones with steel legs will read more mid-century, when they were popular, or modern in the case of the wider legged chromed-legged ones, and the ones with ceramic legs look very Victorian.
I soooo remember being constantly told not to put my weight on the old wall-hung sink in the house I lived in til I was 9 – that sink was probably original to the 1930’s-built house, and not going anywhere, and we were skinny kids back in the 60s. Perhaps my parents were overworried, or perhaps they had seen old sinks come loose.
An alternative might be a pedestal sink – a old or a reproduction one with a wider flared base that mostly supports the sink might give you reason to believe that sink isn’t going anywhere. But I don’t know how much weight those take from the wall – I think the newer ones are mostly (perhaps all?) wall hung as well, and the reproduction one I have lived with was just sort of perched on the skinny base at the top that I wouldn’t have expected to hold the sink up at all – the wall-hung connection was certainly doing all the work-but I have seen some old ones that are freestanding – though they tend to be larger sinks.
stevecym | 4 years and 11 months ago
bob, just to clarify (for the benefit of op, not to debate you), in the house i am sitting in, the outside walls between the neighboring houses are plaster on brick (which is easy to drive a deep anchor into) and the outside walls to the front and rear have the air gap with firring and lath. my guess is that was done for insulation or to prevent condensation from settling on the plaster when the heat was put on suddenly if the wall was cold (this is only a guess, perhaps something is written about it).
for anyone who does not trust anchors. there are the expandable hilti. but let’s keep something in mind – the anchor is only as good as the surrounding mortar and brick and some red bricks get very soft inside. so back to what i say some place above, plug the hole with epoxy and push the anchor in and drive a long screw. in so far as the small anchors, ditch them and go right to the larger.
here is what we do when we have to hang something and we cannot locate studs. and it is what i used to do when building staircases and i had to terminate the top rail on t he top floor against the wall – with no available stud: we make a rossette a good bit larger than the hand rail and anchor the rossette and then attach the handrail to it. spread the load out a bit. what does this have to do with the OP and the sink? they can anchor a larger piece of wood to the wall and then put the bracket on that. if they can hit a stud someplace, even better. then put the bracket to that piece of wood with regular screws. the only reason i did not suggest this at the beginning was now the sink protrudes off the wall the thickness of the wood, so now they have a small tiling job on top of it. perhaps some cement boards and tiling, depending on the thickness. if it were me in my house, i would try all other ways before resorting to this just because of the tile work.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
My 1899 house is the same. We’re writing about the same thing Steve–what you called “outside walls between the neighboring houses” I refereed to as “party walls”.
greenworks | 4 years and 11 months ago
Yeah we tried to wall mount a tv to our exterior wall (truly exterior, detached house on that side) and it’s been a trip. We have those (barely) furring strips steve mentioned, then rock hard old brick and very soft mortar so almost nothing holds. We had to get creative to find a solution where tv would not fall off wall.
Our party wall is def just plaster over brick.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
Could you drill into the brick with a carbide bit?
greenworks | 4 years and 11 months ago
We just bought the carbide, hoping that works!
cate | 4 years and 11 months ago
Agree with what Steve says. A wall-mounted sink is attached to metal brackets and the brackets are attached to the plaster and lathe using anchors specially made for plaster. It has been our experience that licensed plumbers are familiar with how to attach wall-hung sinks (though in our house they’ve only removed and rehung ones that were already present, using the existing materials).
2345bcde | 4 years and 11 months ago
Drill into the brick with a decent sized masonry bit ( use a hammer drill ). Go into the wall 3 inches or so and taper a dowel and drive into the wall with a hammer. Cut the dowel flush with a thin pull saw and screw into the dowel. This works great is very strong and will last a lot longer then we will.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 11 months ago
Is a dowel stronger than a lead anchor?