If you are the type of person that enjoys doing a lot of your own home renovations, then at some time you will need to fasten something to a concrete type substrate. In this series I am going to cover a number of different concrete products and the best solution to attach a fixture of some kind, whether that’s a ledger board for a new deck, walls for a new garage or a new mail box for the front of your house.
The first one I’ll write about is that clay brick that was so popular during the 70’s to decorate your home. Clay brick was never intended for anything but aesthetics, but there are times when you just need to attach something. If you just want to put up a new mail box or house numbers, a plastic plug and wood screw are easy and will work perfectly. But lets say you need to attach a new gate or garden hose reel. First thing I would check would be to see if I could lag bolt right through the brick and into a stud or other solid base material. But quite often that is not possible so the next best thing would be a lag shield . The ridges on the lag shield will hold firmly in the brick without too much outward pressure that could cause a crack in the brick and allow the anchor to fail.
First of all mark the brick where you need to make your attachment using your fixture as a template and carefully drill the appropriate size hole for the size of shield you are using. The size of drill will be marked on the package that the shields came in or available from the retailer where they were purchased. When drilling the hole use a carbide masonry drill bit. Because the bricks are brittle, BE CAREFUL or you could risk cracking them. Once your holes are drilled, tap the shield into place with the open end of the shield facing outward and fasten your fixture in place with the appropriate size lag bolts. DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN!!
I hope that this was at least informative and if you have any questions you know where to reach me.
