Rants from the Hollow

The English feel that American houses are horribly dangerous. Not only are they flimsily constructed from sticks of wood, but they are unhealthy, blowing hot air out of all the walls in the winter, and cold air in the summer. The English have a natural trust for thermal consistency, preferring to heat their homes in lumps, instead of centrally.

Moving into a house in England, although a rental one, I was sure that I’d have plenty of opportunity to drill more holes in the wall, and buy more tools. When Elizabeth wanted to hang an IKEA bathroom cabinet, I figured it was a great opportunity to use my hammer drill. Putting an adapter on the Continental cord so that it could fit into the overly large English socket, I was ready for some major holeage. The external walls on most English houses are a sort of breeze block or cinder block stuff–a sort of fluffy masonry. Figuring that the wall was this stuff, I decided to drill a big hole and use a toggle bolt to solidly anchor inside the wall. To make a long story short, I stuck the toggle into my hold, and it didn’t catch like I expected, so I pushed it a little farther, and the next thing I know, Elizabeth is complaining that some piece of hardware just fell down the stairway. We got out of that house.

Still not fully cognizant of the different construction of interior and exterior walls, I ran into all sorts of metal pieces and masonry when trying to rehang a heavy curtain over the sliding door. My predecessor hadn’t done a very good job of it, and I naively assumed that I could just drill a bigger hole and put in a bigger screw anchor. This is what you do when brackets periodically fall out of the wall. You drill out the hole, put in bigger anchor, and then move before your local DIY store runs out of anchors (der Dübel in Austria, although I haven’t figured out what they use them for, given the cement walls).

Making the hole bigger wasn’t an option in this case because the (apparently) thick metal flange I ran into partway through the wall meant that I couldn’t go deep enough. Stepping back and taking a closer look at the problem, I realised that the reason the middle curtain bracket was off center was not because my predecessor was unable to use a tape measure, but because he’d already given up on the optimal spot because the hole had been widened too many times.

I walked 5 minutes down the high street to Chapmans Ironmonger and threw myself on their mercy. I left with an expensive little package of Power Putty, an epoxy compound uniquely suitable for filling holes in the wall (70kg/cm2 according to Euro Std EN 1465). It isn’t just drillable, sandable, paintable, and sturdier than whatever used to be ther, its fun. I started looking for other holes, just for the sheer pleasure of filling them full of kneaded epoxy putty (hint–spit on your fingertips so that you don’t glue yourself together).

Several months later, the drapes are still firmly attached to the walls of the living room. That’s one chronic problem solved.

I wonder how well Power Putty works on toilet seats.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 9:57 pm and is filed under DIY, Life in UK & Europe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.