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Grumpy_Git
Please may I have some DIY advice:
I am trying to fit some shelves into this space above the cooker but I keep coming up against problem after problem.
For starters, if you look at the second image (yes it's terrible), the wall is tiles on plasterboard with a 100mm (yes 10cm) gap to breeze block. There are battens at points behind the plasterboard.
I bought Fischer Duotec plasterboard fittings as they only require a 10mm hole and are rated to about 20kg, which I thought would be enough. Stronger fittings require bigger holes which I don't feel confident drilling through tiles, cracking the tiles right there in the kitchen is going to give me an even bigger headache than I already have.
I then stupidly bought solid oak shelves thinking they'd look nicer (they do look nicer) but these weigh about 7kg on their own and I'm planning on storing pots and pans on these shelves and I don't want to take chances on the weight limit.
I have a stud finder but I can't get it to work at all, even calibrating it against known locations of battens on another part of the same wall, it just beeps all the time on the section of the wall I need to find the battens. Google suggests this is a common issue with tiled walls.
My questions are:
Would you try and bridge the 100mm gap, or is that not feasible?
Should I buy lighter shelves and just chalk the £70 shelf cost up as a learning experience (I cut into them so they'd fit around the corner boxing so now I can't return them)?
Should I buy a fancier stud finder and hope it works, then fit the brackets into the battens and use the shelves I've got?
Should I not be scared and drill bigger holes in the tiles/plasterboard and use stronger fixings?
Just give up because I've really quite fed up of this ordeal?
Info I've got that you might ask:
The wall is tiled all the way to the floor even behind the floor standing kitchen cabinets so I can't see the batten positions where I want to fit the shelf brackets.
I have no fucking clue how the wall kitchen cabinets are fitted.