Attaching heavy things to plasterboard garage wall- plywood or OSB on top?

Hi all,

Please help a DIY noob. I’m capable of doing stuff but only once I know what I should be doing 🙂

I have a 2m x3m section of garage where I’d like to wall mount bikes. The wall is plasterboard and the studs aren’t in useful places. I’ve no idea what is behind and don’t really want to pulling the wall off. This section is in the far corner so it doesn’t matter too much what the final finish is.

Can I just put up a 2m x 3m bit of 18mm ply or OSB direct on the plasterboard, with some rawl plugs through the board?

Plan the would be to put the bike mounts on smaller rectangle of 18mm thick OSB or ply wood and mount to the new wood lined wall (i.e. have two layers of wood between the plasterboard and metal bike mount, for some extra support of the mount and ease of repositioning).

Or is there a better way to do it? Should I use batons on the plasterboard then ply/ OSB on top or doesn’t it really matter?

Thanks!

I’d just put a length of timber* between the studs and hang off that.

*Or a few at different heights.

Could you hang the bikes from the roof?

I would ply line the wall with the cheapest shuttering ply and paint it. Fixing to the studs not rawl plugs.

Then you can move stuff about to your hearst content. And add shelves and hooks between the bikes. You ca get quite alot on a wall that way.

You don’t need the extra bit of ply its just extra faff.

Batons as per ads suggestion would also work. But i have form for putting stuff through plasterboards so would probably line it fully. Its also loses the options for adding other stuff a bit. Cheap though.

Get yourself a stud finder and then screw the ply to the studs. Raw plugs into plaster board often ends in misery.

I’ve no idea what is behind

Before drilling/screwing into anything (studs or plasterboard) you’ll want to get a bit of a handle on that. There could be electrical cables, water pipes, or gas pipes behind the plasterboard: you should be able to make educated guesses based on the context of what is going on around the wall.

Another thought: depending on the construction of the wall as a whole the plasterboard could be on studs or dot-and-dabbed to block work. In the latter scenario you might get away with using corefix wall anchors to fix the timber to the wall. They’re hellishly expensive but the best thing by far I have found for fixing heavy stuff to dot-n-dab lined walls.

if you know the studs aren’t in useful places then you know where the studs are, screw the ply / osb to the studs instead of fixing to the plasterboard. If you’ve got a board end thats beyond the line of the stud then fix that with plasterboard fixing just for tidiness but let the studs do the bulk of the work

To be honest – hanging a bike on the wall is pretty light duty compared to a shelf of books or a 50kg plasma tv,  so no need to go mad.

Thanks all. I missed some basic common sense stuff there but have everything I need now. Thanks! 🙂

I used interlocking loft boards on the wall of my shed to hang the bikes from, which worked really well.

I wish I’d done this sooner: I had 25mm stud with 12mm plasterboard onto brick, on the wall I wanted to hang bikes on. I cut 40x300mm cutouts in the plasterboard where the bikes were to be mounted, screwed lengths of 4040 aluminium extrusion directly to the brick, the mounted the wall hangers to the extrusion. It’s so much better being able to easily adjust the height of each bracket.

I used interlocking loft boards on the wall of my shed to hang the bikes from, which worked really well.

That seems like a good idea. It would have solved at least one problem I had just now… getting 2440mm x 1220mm x 18mm OSB in the car 😀 The size I was prepared for but I completely underestimated the weight!

Its not hrd to shift when you have the knack.

Unless its windy…

I used a magnet to find the screws holding the plasterboard to the studs in my garage, then screwed lengths of 2×4 onto the studs. Bike hangers, hooks and parts organisers hang off these