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vent covers falling out of wall

94K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  jeffzap 
#1 ·
In a few rooms of our new home, the vent covers for the heating system were attached with screws directly into the drywall. As you can imagine, with time the pressure exerted from opening/closing the covers worked the screws loose and now several of the covers will easily pop out of the wall.

Any ideas on how I can best secure the vent covers to the wall or duct? There does not appear to be any metal flaring out from the duct opening for the screws to hold onto, like I would expect based on the newer homes I'd owned previously. In a few of the rooms I'd like to keep the vents closed, but the air pressure will pop them out of the opening without any kind of anchoring holding them there.

I'm attaching some pictures of one of the vent openings as an example.

Thanks,
Jeff
 

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#4 ·
There are some sort of drywall anchors that when you tighten down the first time the part of the body inside the walls collapses down so that you are able to unscrew and screw back in again. Not sure the name. Go to one of the big box stores or your local hardware store and see what you can find.

B
 
#5 ·
You mean like a winged plastic or hollow wall anchor? I thought about those, except the material inside the drywall where these holes are has mostly crumbled away. There's nothing much left for an anchor to anchor to, and one of the kinds that expands and presses against the back of the wall would likely just crush its way through the paper backing and just make a large hole.

I've thought about setting an anchor in place by hand, then trying to push a bunch of drywall mud or something in there and wait for it to harden, but I don't know if that's a half-assed way to go about it.

Jeff
 
#6 ·
Sure the screws they used where just not to short?
They needed to go thorugh the sheetrock and into the sheetmetal in a predrilled hole for the screw, using sheet metal screws.
And your right no form of cheap plastic anchor or trying to "fill it" is going to work.
 
#8 ·
I can't believe I didn't think of this, but you're dead on. The around 1" long screws used weren't long enough. I picked up some 1 3/4" and 2 1/4" sheet metal screws and probed in there and found (what I hope are) holes to grab into. Fixed the 2 vent covers that were falling out of the wall this way.

Thanks!
 
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