Internal brick/plaster wall - strong enough to hold kitchen cabinets?
January 15, 2024 7:20 AM Subscribe
My flat has solid internal walls made of brick covered with plaster. I want to install kitchen cabinets (both base and wall units) along the length of a 2.5 m wall that currently has none. As best as I can tell, the total thickness of the wall is somewhere between 9-11 cm including the plaster on the living room side and the kitchen tile on the other side. Anyone familiar with this kind of construction know whether hanging cabinets on such a wall is feasible?
If it makes a difference, I'm thinking about installing IKEA cabinets (MDF material) with a stainless steel countertop, including an integrated stove in the lower cabs and an integrated microwave and and extractor in the uppers.
If it makes a difference, I'm thinking about installing IKEA cabinets (MDF material) with a stainless steel countertop, including an integrated stove in the lower cabs and an integrated microwave and and extractor in the uppers.
9-11cm is the width of a standard brick; plaster can add anything from a few mm to a cm each side, but that's just a coating and adds next to nothing to the strength. A wall this thick is called half-brick.
And yes, a half-brick wall can hold kitchen cabinets. I'm looking at one. The one thing that matters is that the screws, plugs and drill sizes match, with the drill being either 8mm or 10mm.
Matching the drill, plugs and screws is because you want to prevent the plugs being pulled out of the wall by the leverage that hanging cabinets exert, but as long as they don't the load on the wall is downwards and brick will sneer at that.
posted by Stoneshop at 7:49 AM on January 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
And yes, a half-brick wall can hold kitchen cabinets. I'm looking at one. The one thing that matters is that the screws, plugs and drill sizes match, with the drill being either 8mm or 10mm.
Matching the drill, plugs and screws is because you want to prevent the plugs being pulled out of the wall by the leverage that hanging cabinets exert, but as long as they don't the load on the wall is downwards and brick will sneer at that.
posted by Stoneshop at 7:49 AM on January 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
and brick walls are usually two courses wide
For internal, non load-bearing walls they're usually just one course. Which gives you 10..11cm.
posted by Stoneshop at 7:52 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]
For internal, non load-bearing walls they're usually just one course. Which gives you 10..11cm.
posted by Stoneshop at 7:52 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: OK, so all the comments about the thickness of standard bricks prompted me to do some more searching. It seems like the "brick" in the wall might not be the typical external construction material, but instead a "ceramic brick" (example here), which are apparently often only 4 cm thick. (I live in Spain and I was confused about the material because both are referred to as ladrillo in Spanish). The walls definitely have a brick-colored core material, because I can see a small amount exposed when I remove an outlet cover on that wall.
Probably more of a long shot to get info about this material, but would still greatly appreciate if anyone is familiar.
posted by nanny's striped stocking at 8:00 AM on January 15, 2024
Probably more of a long shot to get info about this material, but would still greatly appreciate if anyone is familiar.
posted by nanny's striped stocking at 8:00 AM on January 15, 2024
Best answer: For those kinds of building blocks you want to use plugs that expand inside the cavities, kind of like like a barb. I'd go for these; there's an image halfway down the page of the way it anchors in a hollow block.
posted by Stoneshop at 8:51 AM on January 15, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Stoneshop at 8:51 AM on January 15, 2024 [3 favorites]
Best answer: New Ikea cabinets (Metod in Europe) hang on an extra hanging board, so you'd only need a few anchors. I'd actually ask at Ikea, and take a photo of the bare wall if you want their people to do the installation. I had a rather atypical construction with a similar wall followed by 5cm of hollow space, then a layer of pine board, and the Ikea guys gave up, but a local came up with the solution (fill hollow with MDF board scraps, use Really Long Anchors).
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:05 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:05 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]
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Either way: plaster isn't structural, it's visually appealling, so you don't attach anything of substantial weight to it directly (except maybe to hang a picture). You attach things to whatever is holding up the structure.
So, if it's a wood framed wall, you have to identify where the wood framing is, and drill through the plaster to put your screws into the wood frame. If it is a brick construction wall, you drill through the plaster and into the brick so your anchors are attaching to the structural brick, not just to the fragile, not super strong plaster.
If you're attaching to the structure, it should be more than strong enough to hold up your cabinets.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:46 AM on January 15, 2024 [3 favorites]