Professional Builder’s Kieran Nee goes to Chelmsford to visit the guys behind a new wall fixing who clearly aren’t planning on slowing down and dropping anchor any time soon.
In 1381, revolution was in the air in Chelmsford. Peasants from across the Essex countryside were gearing up to march on London to fight the powers that be in response to unfair taxation and to rid themselves of serfdom. The revolt would eventually be suppressed, making a local hero out of its leader, Wat Tyler. Many centuries later, is a second revolution about to engulf Essex’s county town?
Admittedly, this time around the stakes are a little lower – but the creators of Wall Anka, a unique wall-fixing designed to anchor objects to a wall where a dot and dab method has been used to fix plasterboard to the wall, are no less enthusiastic about its game-changing abilities.
“Our product is easier to use than anything else on the market. We want our product to sit in every toolbox alongside rawl plugs” claims Nathan King, 3D Visualiser and one third of the Wall Anka team. “Dot and dab is a great method, it’s so quick and cheap to do. The only downside is that you can’t fix things to the plasterboard. We’ve solved that problem”
Andy Blanks, Builder/Bricklayer and Karl Rogers, Electrician, are the tradesmen who came up with the fixing itself, as Andy explains: “Karl came up with an invention about five years ago, and that inspired me to try and think of something. There was a curtain rail that I was fitting on someone’s house, and all of a sudden it came down, taking a chunk of plasterboard with it.
“So Karl and I brainstormed after that to come up with a solution. The eureka-moment came when we saw a cotton reel and had the idea of the packer. There are similar products, but none of them take the plasterboard out of the equation like ours does.”
Rather than banking on a dream, hoping it will pay off, Andy, Karl and Nathan are investing their time and money in something they know works. As Andy explains: “I attached a pull-up bar to my wall using only Wall Anka fixings and it holds me and my two sons hanging from it quite comfortably… that totals about 220 kg and we were hanging about a foot away from the wall, so that’s leverage too.
“There’s nothing else in the industry that I can think off that can withstand that kind of weight on a dot & dab wall.” If you’re not convinced, the team have uploaded the video along with other instructional videos onto their Youtube channel for all to see.
Of all the inventors and small companies we’ve come across, these guys are some of the most positive. Indeed, any trouble they’d had certainly hasn’t dampened their spirits any. “We came up with the idea at the end of last year,” Karl explains, “and within a year from starting, we’re already talking about it to Professional Builder, so it’s gone extremely quickly. The feedback we’ve had so far has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Andy chimes in: “Most tradesmen just tell us they were grateful that something like this now exists. We did meet one guy on the manufacturing side who had quite a negative outlook generally.
“He took us in and showed us this glass cabinet, and said ‘look inside this cabinet, here are all the ‘million pound ideas’ people have brought to me in the past that never worked.’ Well, we’re not in that cabinet and we’re determined we never will be!”
Step-By-Step
Step One
Drill a hole big enough in the plasterboard to accommodate the top of the fixing and a hole in the wall long enough to accommodate the protruding part for the screw.
Step Two
Place the Wall Anka backwards into the hole and slide on the washers until flush with the plasterboard.
Step Three
Turn around and push the fixing in as far as it will go. The back of the fixing will then be flush with the plasterboard.
Step Four
Place whatever needs to be fixed to the wall over the hole and drive in screw as per usual.