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How to fill holes in top of concrete window recess from roller blind installations?

Hi Bunnings Workshop Community

I'm replacing my kitchen roller blind and didn't realise until I took the old one down how dodgy previous installs were. I've removed all the wall plugs and painted over brackets but now there's quite a few sizeable holes in the top (ceiling) and sides of the window recess, which is concrete.

I've got some Concremate to fill the holes, and my first question is:

1. Is there a trick to getting the Concremate far enough into the holes and making sure gravity doesn't thwart the mission?

In addition to that question, I know it's usually advisable to make the new holes at least 10mm from the old ones but I'm not sure I can get them all quite that far away. I plan to bring the blind further away from the window and set it slightly to one side, which I think is as much distance as I'm likely to get. But the new screws will then be sort of offset between the existing holes and may be within the 10mm; I don't think there's any way to avoid that, which leads me to my other questions:

2. Will I still be able to drill (with a hammer drill and masonry bit) into the Concremate-filled sections, or is it likely to cause me problems?

3. And is there a particular point in the Concremate setting process, given that it strengthens over time, that's ideal for drilling the new holes?

Just a note: some of the holes are deeper or wider than one would expect; a couple of them inexplicably had plastic plugs with a screw drilled beside them. $1 coin pictured for scale.

I'm open to any suggestions, and thank you for all the help and expertise these forums provide.

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Comments

Dave-1

Afternoon @professy

Welcome to the Bunnings community pages 🙂 Its a good spot to land with a question like yours.

I have seen people do the same doubling up on rawl plug when holes are too big, If you want to get technical about good and bad idea. I actually think its a resonable one to get out of a tight situation 🙂 hahahah and no, I didnt see the Pun coming! The idea of the rawl plug is to be forced to expand as you screw into it, wedging the screw and rawl plug in tighter. The screw that is screwed in flush is just "fill" to make the hole tighter.

You can try and remove the rawl plug with a pair of long nosed pliers (Have done so with a little patience) Drill them out, think that will be messy and probarly jam up the drill as its a hard product tho flexible but still worth a shot. Then reuse the holes, or us ethem with the existing rawl plug in them.

Concretemate I wouldnt be using in a spot like that, Ive only used it on a patio repair and it was resonably fluid and trying to get it to stay in the hole and cover the hole at the same time.... Yeah nah.

So the question comes down to, Will the new blinds cover the holes? How heavy are they? And can the existing holes be reused?

Drilling 10mm away from a hole I would not recommend 😕 30mm would be a bare minimum but even that is pushing your luck on cracking the concrete. 6mm holes are pretty small but you dont need more holes, Id try and reuse what you have.

Dave

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @professy. It's brilliant to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about filling holes.

How heavy is the blind? If it's relatively lightweight, I don't think I would be as concerned as @Dave-1. It would be great to move them 30mm away into fresh material, but I think even 15mm away would be sufficient. If you can get the Concretmate to stay in the hole whilst it dries, perhaps by covering it with some masking tape, you should be able to drill almost on top of it. You can also use it to embed the fixing in the wall.

Do you need to redrill into the top hole area? If not, you can fill them with a standard Spakfilla, which is a much stiffer mix.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

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