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To ensure that curtain poles, shelves and other wall fittings stay up, you must use the right fixings.

Whether you are putting up a coat hook or a heavy wall unit, you need to know the correct drill and bit, wall fixings and screws to use. The precise method of fixing depends on the structure of the wall, and the fixture's weight.

Solid wall are made of brick, block or concrete skimmed with plaster. To attach a fixture, you frill holes into the wall to match its fitting holes and insert wallplugs to hold the screws when they are driven in.

Hollow walls are a timber framework of upright battens called studs, faced with sheets of plasterboard or, in older homes, a thin skin of wooden slats, known as lath and plaster. Many internal and partition walls are hollow, and sound hollow when tapped. To find a stud, tap along the wall and listen carefully; when you hear a dull sound rather than an echoing one, you are over a stud.

When attaching a light or medium weight fixture, like a small bathroom cabinet or ornamental shelves, to a hollow wall, you have to use special cavity fixings. For heavyweight items, such as a kitchen wall unit, bookshelves or curtain tracks and poles, you need to locate and screw directly into the timber framework.

DRILLS

A variable speed, hammer action electric drill makes light work of drilling fixing holes into walls. Always wear safety goggles when drilling.

The drilling tool is the bit'. Always match the size of the bit to the wallplug or cavity fixing, as shown on the packets. Judge the depth of the hole you have to drill by the length of the screw you need to use.

Masonry bits have a hardened, spade-shaped tip for cutting through brick or blocks, and concrete in a lintel above a widow when fixing up a curtain track or pole.

Wood twists bits are meant for drilling into wood, but can cope with plasterboard, although they will be spoilt for other jobs.

Spear point bits are used for drilling holes in ceramic tiles and glass.

WALL FIXINGS

Wall fixings provide secure anchorage in the wall for the screws. They fall into two categories, wallplugs for solid walls and cavity fixings for hollow walls. Most packets of wall fixings indicate the bit size to use for drilling the hole and suitable screw gauges.

Pushed into the drilled hole, wallplugs expand to grip the masonry as the screw holding the fixture is driven in.

Molded plastic wallplugs, with a small lip that sits flush with the wall, are most convenient to use and take a range of screw sizes. Avoid using

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