Before the cold season: check the shelves and wall fixings around the house

Why fixings work loose over the course of a year

Most Tallinn homes go through a wide humidity swing between the heating season and the summer months. Plasterboard and timber studs absorb moisture in autumn and give it up again once the radiators come on, and that repeated movement gradually opens up the grip a plastic wall plug has in the hole.

In panel buildings the concrete itself barely moves, but the plug can still loosen if it was drilled slightly oversized to begin with, or if the shelf has been knocked or leaned on over the year. In older wooden houses in Kalamaja or Nõmme, timber studs and battens shrink and swell more, so screws driven into them tend to work loose faster than ones anchored in concrete.

None of this means the fixing was done badly. It is normal wear on an ordinary household fitting, and it is exactly why a yearly check before the heavier winter months makes sense rather than waiting for something to fall.

What to check by hand before adding any load

Go round the flat and put your hand on each shelf and rail, then press down and side to side rather than just looking at it. A fixing that is still sound will not move at all; one that has started to loosen will flex slightly or you will hear a faint grinding of the plug in the hole.

Pay particular attention to anything mounted on plasterboard, since a partition wall gives far more warning signs than solid concrete before it actually fails. Wobble on a TV mount is worth taking seriously given the weight involved, even a small amount of play at the top of the bracket.

Check curtain rails the same way, especially at the end brackets, since these carry a sideways pull every time the curtain is drawn and loosen faster than a shelf that only bears a steady downward weight.

• Shelf brackets: press down and pull forward, check for any give at the wall
• TV wall mount: grip the bracket, not the television, and rock it gently side to side
• Curtain rail end brackets: check both ends, not just the one you can reach easily
• Mirror fixings: check especially if the mirror is heavy or frameless
• Any fixing in plasterboard: look for a faint ring or crack starting to show around the plug

If a screw turns loosely without gripping the wall

If a screw spins freely instead of tightening, the plug has stopped gripping the hole and turning the screw further will not fix it. Pulling the plug out and driving the same size screw back into the same hole almost always fails the same way within weeks.

The usual fix is a slightly larger plug and screw in the same hole, or filling the old hole with a wood filler or repair compound, letting it set, and re-drilling a touch to one side. In plasterboard, a proper cavity or hollow-wall fixing rated for the actual weight of the shelf or mount is worth using rather than a plug meant for solid wall.

If several fixings on the same shelf have gone this way at once, it is often simpler to take the shelf down, fill all the holes, and re-drill fresh ones a few centimetres off from the originals rather than fighting with each hole individually.

When to re-tighten it yourself and when to call someone in

A shelf that only holds books or ornaments and shows early signs of a loose plug is a reasonable job to sort out yourself with a drill, the right size plug, and half an hour on a Saturday. The stakes are low and a mistake is easy to correct.

A television mount is a different matter, given the weight involved and the cost of getting it wrong. If the wall is plasterboard, if you are not sure what is behind it, or if the existing holes have already enlarged, it is worth having it checked properly rather than guessing at a bigger plug. We fit and re-secure TV wall mounts from 65 € per job.

For shelves and mirrors generally, our rate is from 39 € per hour, with a call-out fee of 25 € within Tallinn that comes off the bill if the work goes ahead. Curtain rail fitting or re-fitting is from 35 € per job. If you are unsure whether a fixing is safe to leave, sending a photo before booking is often enough for us to advise.

Think ahead about the load before heavier winter items go up

Before storage boxes, spare blankets or heavier winter curtains go up onto a shelf or rail, it is worth thinking about the actual weight being added rather than assuming a fixing that has coped so far will keep coping. A shelf that has held a row of paperbacks all summer is carrying a different load once it takes stacked storage boxes.

This is also the point to think about whether a shelf needs an extra bracket in the middle, not just a re-tightened one at each end, if it is going to carry noticeably more weight over winter than it has done through the year.

A five-minute check per room now is a small job. Refitting a shelf that has come away from a plasterboard wall, along with the wall repair that follows, is a considerably bigger one.