Roger Bisby asks whether the latest fixing is just another quick fix?
The GeeFix has the strap-line ‘The Ultimate Cavity Fixing’. That is some claim and I wonder if the inventor has tried them all or is just so convinced of their idea that they repel all boarders.
There is nothing like having confidence in your product but over the time I have been reviewing products for Professional Builder Magazine there have been scores of cavity fixings for plasterboard sent in for review.
They arrive in Jiffy bags on such a regular basis that I can almost guess what’s inside. The finer details of each fixing vary but the principle is always to spread the load across the board.
This is commonly done by worm screws, spring loaded toggles, discs with little wings and even mushrooms that you feed in and squirt with resin.
The Geefix does it the old way by threading a strip through the hole and fiddling it round so it straddles the hole. Before GeeFix took the idea and made it into something you can buy in the merchants we used to do this all the time with short lengths of batten.
You could tie a bit of string around the middle of a batten and pull it back hard against the wall so you could get a couple of screws in to hold it in position.
Sometimes it worked better than others. The problem was that you often ended up splitting the batten when you drove the final fixing in.
When all went well I used to fill the holes with some rapid setting filler to restore the structural integrity of the board and make it look neater but the GeeFix has a nice snug fitting plastic disc that pops in to do the same job.
It also transfers the sheer force down against the edge of the board. It is basically the same idea as the timber batten but it is better engineered, quicker to fix and more reliable than making your own.
The inventor is a plumber so he was obviously thinking about hanging radiators and basins. That might work but you certainly wouldn’t hang a boiler on it.
If the job is critical you are always better off letting a batten into the wall but the decision to place your faith in any type of fixing is yours and yours alone. These may or may not be the ultimate cavity fixing but they are a useful addition to the arsenal.
For more information on GeeFix click here.
