How we check a fixing

The method in four steps

1. We use the maker's own figure. For a no-drill fix, that is the figure the maker prints for the exact set-up it describes, such as one strip, two nails, or a shelf with its adhesive kit. For a wall fixing, it is fischer's recommended load for one fixing in your wall material.
2. We compare exactly, with no margin of our own. Your weight must be at or below the figure, and every condition the maker sets must fit your answers: the surface, the room and any waiting time. The maker's figure is the most it is rated for, not a target.
3. We never stretch a figure. We use only the set-ups the maker states: we never add up strips or nails beyond them, work out a figure between two sizes, or scale a figure up or down.
4. When no maker we checked gives a figure, we say so and give no answer. That is the case for the tension rods we checked, the no-drill blind bracket we checked and lath and plaster walls. We could not read a maker's own page for a no-drill curtain pole bracket under our source rules, so we give no answer for those rather than guess.

We do not load-test fixings ourselves, and we do not ask you to trust our judgement over a maker's. Where a maker adds a warning, we show it with the answer.

No-drill fixes: matching your answers to the maker's words

A no-drill figure only counts on a surface the maker names, matched word for word. A named surface never covers a coated or different version of it: plaster is not painted plaster, and neither is plasterboard, and wood is not painted or varnished wood. So tesa's products for wallpaper and plaster, which it describes as For textured and sensitive surfaces like wallpaper or plaster, answer only for wallpaper and bare (unpainted) plaster. Where a maker's own words say a product is not for a surface, the checker says Not for this surface and quotes them; where the maker says nothing about your surface, it gives no answer.

In a bathroom, the maker has to say the product is for bathrooms or wet rooms. Where a product sheet says Humidity resistance no, we answer that it is not for this room. Where it says nothing about bathrooms, we give no answer for a bathroom and say the maker does not state it.

The tesa product sheets we use list their holding power under Technical Information (average values) and say of that section: The values in this section should be considered representative or typical only and should not be used for specification purposes. We still compare your item with that figure exactly, with no margin of our own, and show tesa's note with the answer.

Painted walls are the commonest surface, and today the checker has no sticky-strip answer for them. The makers whose pages we could read under our rules don't name painted walls for their strips and nails, and a maker whose site does not allow the automated reading our rules need is not used, even from an archived copy. On its towel hooks page, tesa's own list of surfaces for its Power.Kit hooks says no to lacquers and wall paints, and the checker shows that answer in tesa's words.

Sources: tesa, tesa Adhesive Strips for Wallpaper & Plaster 1kg, Product Information BNR 77771, en-GB. Checked 12 Oct 2026; tesa, tesa Adhesive Strips for Wallpaper & Plaster 0.5kg, Product Information BNR 77770, en-GB, as of 25/02/25. Checked 12 Oct 2026; tesa, tesa Waterproof Strips Xtra Large, Product Information BNR 40519, en-GB, as of 25/02/25. Checked 12 Oct 2026.

Wall fixings: fischer's recommended loads

fischer publishes load tables for its fixings, with a recommended load for one fixing in each wall material. Each of the three tables we use says “Required safety factors are considered” (the DuoPower, SX Plus and HM tables alike). Because its safety factors are already in the figure, we add none of our own.

We use a row only when it matches your wall: plasterboard by its thickness, concrete and aerated concrete by fischer's own row names. fischer gives higher figures for stronger aerated concrete, but the class cannot be told from the wall, so we use its lowest class, AAC 2. fischer gives no load figure for dense block. A fixing only counts in plasterboard when fischer's product page says it fits that board. Over tiles on plasterboard we use only the metal cavity fixing, chosen by the board and the tiles together, with no load comparison: fischer rates its plasterboard plugs by the board alone and gives no row for board with tiles over it.

fischer's tables are in kilonewtons (kN). Its DuoPower UK page shows the same figures in kilograms, at a hundred kilograms for each kN: fischer's table gives the DuoPower 5 x 25 a recommended load of 0.40 kN in concrete, and its UK product page says Max. load in concrete 40 kg. So we compare your weight in kilograms, fischer's own way. Where fischer's page gives a kg figure for that fixing, size and wall, we use it. Where it does not, we turn the table's kN into kg at that rate, fischer's own conversion, but only for a product line whose own page shows the rate. Where a line's page gives no kg at all, as for the SX Plus and the HM, we show the kN figure, say that fischer does not give it in kg, and make no comparison. If a page and a table ever disagree, we use the lower figure. The load per fixing we show is rounded up, never down.

For brick, fischer's UK page for the DuoPower 6 x 30 gives Max. load in solid brick 50 kg and Max. load in vertically perforated brick 15 kg, and its table rates solid brick of class Mz 12 or stronger. We cannot tell your brick's class from the wall, or solid brick from perforated brick, so a brick wall is compared with the lower of fischer's two brick figures for each fixing (for this plug, the perforated brick one), and we show both.

Of the fixings that cover your load, we show the one with the smallest drill hole first, then the one with the lowest recommended load, then fischer's own order.

When something sticks out from the wall, like a shelf on brackets or a TV arm, we do not compare your weight with a figure per fixing. We show each fixing's figure and say the bracket maker's own rating is the limit: the lower of the two applies. For a TV arm on plasterboard, Vogel's, which makes TV mounts, says When you pull forward or turn a full-motion TV wall mount, extra force is applied to the wall. A plasterboard wall with wooden profiles cannot withstand this.

Sources: fischer, Loads, DuoPower, recommended loads for a single anchor. Checked 12 Oct 2026; fischer, fischer DuoPower product page. Checked 12 Oct 2026; Vogel's, How to mount a TV on a plasterboard or hollow wall. Checked 12 Oct 2026.

What the confidence labels mean

• Depends on the maker: this maker's figure for this product only. Other makers' figures may differ.
• No recommendation: no maker we checked gives a figure, so we do not guess.

Our product lists

Models we checked, in our checkers and guides, are chosen from makers' own pages, never from Amazon data. Our product lists show products sold on Amazon UK, picked from Amazon UK's own category lists, with facts quoted from each listing. Commissions never change an answer or the order of products.

We picked these products from Amazon UK's own category lists, favouring products that were in stock and selling well there when we chose them. Each list follows Amazon UK's own sales ranking, read on the date shown above it; where a list combines several of Amazon UK's categories, it takes products from each in turn. Being listed, or listed first, is not a recommendation.

Products without a ranking follow the ranked ones, by the figure the list names above it, smallest first, then by name.

In our product lists, each name is taken from the product's Amazon listing and shortened by a fixed rule. The figures beside it are what the listing says, quoted from its title, its bullet points or its product details, with the date we read it. Columns marked (listing) hold them; a figure that only a few listings in a list give is shown on each product's own page instead. We have not checked them with the maker, and they are not sources: the Sources page lists only the documents our answers rely on. We hide each listing figure forty-five days after the day we read the listing.

Load figures in these lists are what each listing says. Our checkers use only makers' own ratings. A listing's load is shown only where the listing's own words name it, and under those words: "maximum weight" where the listing says maximum weight, "maximum load" where it says maximum load; a figure the listing does not name is not shown. A listing's load is never compared with your item, never added to another, never used to order a list and never turned into an answer. Where a list shows the load of something screwed or bolted to a wall (a TV mount, a shelf or bracket, a coat rack or hook, a towel rail, a toilet roll holder, a curtain pole, a utensil rail, a garage rack), the maker's own rating for it is the limit, and so is the wall fixing's: the lower of the two applies. Adhesive hooks and strips, freestanding shelving, desk monitor arms and items held by tension, suction or a magnet carry the first line only.

We show no load for ladders, and no standards, safety classes, setting times or other instructions from a listing. Names that carry such a claim, or a load, are left out of the lists.

A TV mount's or monitor arm's VESA pattern is shown exactly as its listing writes it after the word VESA, and only where that is the listing's whole list or range; it is never matched to a TV. For wall plugs and fixings, a product's page may also show the walls its listing names, in the listing's own words, beside a link to What's my wall?. We never match them to the walls in our checker, and they are never a reason a fixing is shown.

The lists give an answer of our own only where a listing's model is the maker's own product code in our records of that maker's pages: today, fischer DuoPower wall plugs. A wall plug's maker figure depends on the wall and the direction of the load, so that answer gives no figure: it names the walls fischer rates the plug for, in fischer's words, and sends you to What's my wall?, which gives fischer's figure for your wall. For your own item and wall, use Will it hold? and What's my wall?.

Re-checks and archived pages

Every source has a date we checked it and a date we check it again, both on the Sources page. Once the re-check date passes, the tools stop using that figure and the tables and product lines stop showing it, in your browser from that day, even before the site is updated. The site cannot be rebuilt with it until we have read the maker's page again.

Where a maker's own site does not allow the automated reading our rules need, or its terms forbid it, we do not use its figures at all, even from an archived copy, and we do not name its products.

Every figure we use