Anchors—Bonded or Mechanical?
Building your own dream house can be a real challenge. All those technical terms or different types of mechanical equipment are rather confusing. To make it more simple in at least one matter, this article is dedicated to anchors.
What are the anchors?
They come under many different names, but basically, they all mean the same: a product that keeps everything together. Their main purpose is to fix the adjoining elements to one another. For example, anchors are used in an assemblage of gates, building foundations, heaters, parallel bars and even waterworks. As you can see the range of anchors’ use is quite wide. Basically, an anchor is a rod, a bar or a screw, that links element and can hold under great weights.
Different types for different heights
As there are many fields where you can use anchors, there are many kinds of them. There are, then, bonded anchors, mechanical anchors and fixings (lightweight fixings, facade insulation fixings and roofing insulation fixings), undercut and screw anchors, plastic and powder-actuated anchors.
Bonded anchors
Sometimes they appear under more common names like resin or chemical anchors. What is more important is that there are two types of bonded anchors: capsule and injection anchors. Each of them has two chambers, one filled with a polymer resin (thus the common name), the second one contains a hardener (you can find them at https://www.rawlplug.com/en/products/bonded-anchors). Capsule anchors are usually used in bonding heavy and solid elements and materials like concrete or building stone walls. You can also use injection anchors dealing with concrete, but they work well with brickwork and blockwork as well.
What of mechanical anchors?
Mechanical anchors or mechanical bolts are the most common ones. Their usage is based on friction and depending on where they are used there are many types. There are heavy duty expansion anchors, shield anchors, through bolts, internally threaded anchors and screw anchors.
Bonded anchors vs. mechanical anchors
The advantage of bonded (chemical) is that the resin liquid takes on the shape of the hole it is in and fills it almost hermetically. Additionally, bonded anchors don’t create a tension between them and the base surface, whereas the mechanical anchors base on such tension. The man asset of mechanical bonds is that they are easily and quickly adjusted, as the hole for the chemical anchors must be thoroughly cleaned. Therefore, before taking any action think through what kind of anchors is more likely to be used.