Corefix 100mm Heavy Duty Dot & Dab Wall Fixings - Plasterboard Over Blockwork Wall Plugs & Screws - For TVs, Radiators, Shelving & more - Holds 100kg on 4 fixtures - Reinforced Steel Core – Box of 24

Product Information

Corefix can be installed in less than one minute, without the need for specialist tools – all you need is a 10mm masonry drill, hammer, and a screwdriver:

Because it is bent, the downward force of the attached object starts to tilt outward as the image above shows. This stops the force being 100% downwards and moves it to an angle which, after time, starts to pull the screw out of the wall. Drill a hole through the plasterboard and into the solid wall behind, ensuring the total depth is a minimum of 100mm. This can result in cold spots on the wall which, in turn can result in condensation and condensation around the window reveals of a dot and dab plaster boarded room is very common. Remove any dust or debris from the hole before gently tapping the Corefix plug into place until the flange sits against the plasterboard.

Metex Fixings Overview

Once the plug is in the wall, a steel tube is pushed into the end of the plug. This tube is hollow and very very strong. It is long enough to go right through to the masonry wall where it, after being hammered home, forms a really tight fit about 25mm into the masonry wall. The steel tube, as you can see from both the video and the image below, bridges the gap in the dot and dap wall. 50% of the steel tube is held in the masonry which is how the load is supported at the other end of the screw. Dot & dab often also gets called drylining, even if a full wet coat of plaster is applied to the boards. Some builders / plasterers prefer to just tape and fill the joints between boards using a plasterboard joint compound. Some prefer a full, final skim coat of wet plaster. Obviously the latter means you need to wait a lot longer before painting. How to tell if you have dot & dab?

This is going to depend on the type of plasterboard wall you are dealing with and the quality of the plasterboard fixings to be used. If your plasterboard wall is a dot and dab wall, then yes definitely you can fix your kitchen wall cabinets to that wall, but only if you use the correct type of wall fixings and for that we recommend Corefix. It’s no secret, we love them! This hideous problem that has plagued us (and many many others) for many many years has now magically gone away thanks to Corefix. Using a 4-inch wall plug, with the main body of the plug at a 10mm diameter, the Corefix wall plug is pushed into a 10mm hole. It is not pushed through the plasterboard however as the lip at the head of the plug will prevent that happening. For lightweight stuff such as mirrors and pictures I like to use a single 6mm Fischer DuoPower plug and a 10ga x 1¾” or 5mm x 40mm screw. Obviously use a screw length suitable for the item you’re attaching to the wall. I also sometimes use Fischer GP fixings in hollow sections and normal Fischer red plugs on the dabs. You could also use plugs such as the Rawlplug Uno. The DuoPower plugs have the advantage that they can be used in both the hollow sections and the solid sections. Medium weight itemsWe know the problem with fixing to dot and dab is the unsupported length of screw between the wall and the board. Corefix decided to keep it very simple and say that the solution is obviously to find a way of supporting it! And boy have they done that! We will discuss this, and the wonderful advantage of Corefix a little further on. First, take a look at the video above where you will see just how powerful the Corefix dot and dab plasterboard fixings are. Why is Fixing to Dot and Dab Plasterboard a Problem?

Dot and dab: In some situations you need to treat dot and dab like a hollow wall and in some situations you need to treat it like a solid wall. A screw, in this gap, is not supported and any heavy load applied to the end of it will cause the screw to bend. Corefix can be bought from most high street DIY stores today including B&Q, Screwfix and the similar.It does however have a few pitfalls, not the least of them being thermal bridging where the cold temperature of the masonry is transferred, via the plasterboard adhesive, to the inside of the plasterboard wall. In 2017 statistics show that almost 80% of people are installing TV’s which range between 40 and 55 inches (Source Statisista.com). If you can’t be bothered reading all the stuff below I’ll cut to the chase – here’s a list of everything discussed in the above video: