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Add another one to the list of people looking for a replacement for a towel bar hidden mounting plate (or bracket). My towel bar uses a mounting plate that is 2 1/4' tall, 1 1/8' wide, and the top. Jul 25, 2011 You can find replacement towel bar mounting hardware in our lavatory hardware catalog section.At this time we do not carry the actual towel bars lengths. If you need help determining which mounting hardware you need, feel free to send us some photos of your current towel bar mounting.
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Provide rock-solid support for those wall-mounted fixtures in the bathroom
Project Cost
2 to 3 hours to install each towel bar (doesn't include drying time for the joint compound)
Skill: Easy to moderate
The installation isn't particularly difficult, but concealing the drywall patch requires careful work and patience
Hollow-wall anchors are great for hanging pictures, framed mirrors and bulletin boards on drywall. But these fasteners aren't strong enough to support extremely heavy loads. And they often work loose when used to attach fixtures that are always being jostled and tugged at, such as towel racks, toilet paper holders, grab bars and curtain rods.
The simplest way to safely attach any type of fixture—no matter how big or how heavy—is to drive the mounting screws directly into wall studs. Unfortunately, that's not always possible. You can usually find one stud to screw into, but seldom is a second stud exactly where you need it. For example, in the installation shown here, we mounted two towel bars one above the other about 6 in. from a wall corner. It's very rare that a stud would be positioned so close to a corner; the nearest one is usually 16 or 24 in. away.
Plus, we didn't want the stud locations to dictate where the towel bars would go. So instead of worrying about where the studs were, we cut open the wall and installed a horizontal 1x4 solid backing that allowed us to securely fasten the mounting brackets exactly where we wanted them.
Here's how to install 1x4 backing for mounting two towel bars. The process is the same for attaching other types of wall-mounted fixtures, with one notable exception: When installing a safety grab bar, replace the 1x4 with a 2x4 and secure it with countersunk lag screws.
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Cut through drywall to expose studs
In order to install 1x4 backing, you must first cut a rectangular hole 6-inches-high and long enough to span at least two studs. If working in a corner, mark the hole outlines starting 1 ½-inches from the wall corner and extending 3 inches beyond a stud. Then, use a drywall saw to cut along the pencil lines.