lunawilson•15d agoOG Member

A retired plumber told me to always overshoot my anchor holes by 1/8 inch and he was dead right

I was hanging some heavy shelving in my garage last month and a neighbor who used to do plumbing for 40 years walked over, saw me drilling pilot holes, and said stop, go a bit wider. I figured he was just being old school about something, but I tried it on one bracket. The extra room lets the screw bite into fresh wood instead of getting jammed in the dust. The shelf that I did his way held up fine with boxes of old parts on top. The other one sagged after a week. I had to pull it all down and redo it. Anyone else get random advice from older tradespeople that actually works better than the standard instructions?

2 comments

2 Comments

rivershah14d agoMost Upvoted

Idk, I was pretty stubborn about sizing pilot holes exactly to the screw. Used to think that was just the right way. This makes a lot of sense though, the bit clearing out the dust so the threads grab clean wood.

thomasm4114d ago

Man I was the SAME way. Thought it was all about matching the pilot hole diameter exactly. Took me way too long to learn that a slightly oversized hole actually works BETTER for the threads. Makes such a difference on hardwoods too, way less chance of snapping a screw.