Bath Vanity Falling Off Wall : Stuff I See While Working

I’ve been in a lot of houses and apartments that have been renovated or are new construction, and I’m never surprised by what I see. Take this expensive bathroom vanity as an example:

right side is a bit off here...

Here the bath vanity is falling off the wall, not a good thing. Especially for a brand new renovation.

Vanity counter separating from wall

Crawling underneath the vanity and searching around, I found that the whole vanity, with this heavy counter top, had been installed with 4 drywall screws. And two of screws did not hit a stud.

On the right side of the vanity the drywall screws had sheared. wow.

Before starting to fix this, I explained to the homeowner that it was possible the vanity top would crack when we raised it back into place. Always warn people.

I got the car jack from our car and with some scrap lumber, raised the vanity a bit higher than its original location. I did this because I knew the vanity would probably drop just a bit when screwing it back in to the wall.

I then got my hammer drill out – the right wall is the common wall between 2 brownstones, hence its a double brick wall- and drilled a 3/8″ hole thru the tile deep into the brick.

concrete sleeved anchors are bulletproof

I drove in a sleeved anchor, and tightened the vanity to the wall. If you have to hammer in a sleeved anchor, put the nut on the anchor before hitting it with hammer to save the threads. These anchors hold a lot of weight and are easy to put in, the hardest part is drilling the hole. I use them to hang TVs on brick and cement walls.

What surprises have you found when doing repairs? Tell us below