wall-mounted sink has become slightly detached from the wall

kevind

I've got a wall-mounted sink in one of my bathrooms, and the top part has become detached from the wall. I was doing some painting in the room the other day, standing on the toilet, and I put a foot on the sink for balance. Well, the pressure must have been enough to rip the caulk/adhesive/whatever was holding the top part to the wall. The mounting underneath looks fine, it just has a little wobble to it at the top.

So what's the best way to fix this? Clean it up, use some adhesive, then re-caulk and re-paint?

I've attached pics of the top where you can see the part that's pulled away, and another pic underneath the sink.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

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TarheelTerp

I bet you'll never do that again.

It's worth a try... and you might just luck out.
But it's probably not the "best way" that you asked for.

joecaption

#1 Those screws are way to small, you may have pulled them out of the wall.

kevind

So it sounds like maybe I need to take the sink off the wall and get a better look at what's going on?

ben's plumbing

joe makes a good point very small screws ...should be a small lag screw..its not that big of a job to remove and use bigger screws on bracket....thats the proper way...ben sr

joecaption

When I mount one I first install a 2X6 that's been recessed into the wall, then I only use lags and washers as suggested.

747

First thing i also noticed was the screws. Those should be lags.

kevind

Okay, I took the sink off the wall; pics are attached. The blue spot marks where the drywall isn't stable; it gives a little. You can see from the pic that none are lag screws, and that the mounting hardware on the left is even missing a screw. Also, the left side doesn't seem to be completely flush; it looks like there's some compound or something that's pushing it slightly away from the wall (see pic #2).

So what's the best way to fix this, given that I'm getting the house ready to sell? It doesn't have to be perfect, but I want it to be good enough. Replacing all the screws with lags should be easy enough, but I'm not sure about that small patch of loose drywall. I could do a small patch there, but then would it be strong enough?

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bbo

those screws going into wood?

if so, this is what I would do.

1) replace the screws with lag screws, one at a time.
2) remove loose patching material
3) smooth with some joint compound.
4) paint if needed
5) put sink back up.

edit*
if no wood, I'd
measure where plate is moounted from floor
remove plate
cut a square from stud to stud large enough to get a 2x6 in there.
then mount a drywall patch over that.
then tape and mud
then paint
then mount sink back up.

kevind

Yep, it's wood. They at least got that part right.

kevind

Ugh. Another update: I was wrong about their being wood behind the mounting. There's nothing; it's just drywall. Not only that, but the water pipe runs right behind the drywall where I would like to attach the 2x6. Any thoughts?

Edit: looks like the mounting hardware on the right goes into a stud. The rest is just in the drywall,

jagans

They make these things called step ladders, and step stools.

__________________
" A lot of men build things, and a lot of things fall down "

bbo

huh?

related note, stepladders cost seems to go up exponentially as they get taller. I just bought a 12 foot one.

back on topic. pic of whats in the wall now?

kevind

I couldn't get a great pic, but here's what I got. In the first pic, the big white thing in the middle is the water pipe; the white thing on the right is the drywall. In the second pic you can see the outside wall including the mounting hardware and inside where the pipe runs right next to the wall.

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jagans

put in a Vanity and a new sink and fixture. It looks like that one came out before power steering.

__________________
" A lot of men build things, and a lot of things fall down "