Towel Rack Repair for Dummies

How hollow wall fasteners work

As our crack research team putters around the internet in search of freelance bull, they often search for answers to questions that have come up in their own lives. One of the guys had a loose towel rack not long ago and, although he fixed it without outside intervention, he searched on the topic anyway. As luck would have it, he found eHow.com's Jonra Springs (a hot tub salesman?) ready to "help" with the problem. Here's what Jonra had to say in "How to Repair a Loose Towel Rack On Wall"¹ [sic].

As we do whenever possible, we went to the freelancer's original source, though we had to use the Wayback machine to find it; and – to be frank – it was only slightly better than what Springs wrote, suggesting that to tighten up a loose hollow wall fastener you simply "squirt a nice stream of glue into the hole" (small wonder the blogger who posted it took it down). But we're here to castigate Jonra, not Mark. Springs starts off with a bang, explaining that

"Towel racks are pertinent bath accessories that frequently get dislodged from drywall and plaster, especially if they're bolted to a space between the studs."

Our house grammarian was perturbed by that "pertinent" stuff and the home repair guy snorted at the idea that a towel rack is "bolted" to anything. But, moving on, Jonra instructs his readers to

"Loosen the set screw on the anchor arm of the affected side to release it from the slip-on bracket with a Phillips screwdriver. Lift the anchoring side arm upward to pull it off the bracket. Simply lift the arm to release it on towel racks that do not have set screws holding the arm to the bracket." The home repair guy was a little confused by the thought that a towel rack has an "anchor arm," and also observed that most set screws are hex head or use a flat jeweler's screwdriver. Next, Springs says to

"Remove the two screws holding the bracket to the wall with a Phillips screwdriver or screw gun. Remove any plastic wall anchors, or mollies as they're called, with needle nose pliers."

We certainly hope that no one is trying to do this without removing the entire towel rack, through Jonra never says to do that. And we also know that pulling a hollow-wall fastener out of a wall with needle-nose pliers makes a mess -- instead, cut the exterior flange off with a razor blade and shove the rest into the wall cavity.

The remainder is boilerplate instructions except where Jonra copied the "squirt wood glue" crap into his post. Whatever the case, it's pretty clear that Springs either has never repaired a loose towel rack or simply can't write instructions. Either way, his post is more than bad enough to earn him the Dumbass of the Day award.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_5577010_repair-loose-towel-rack-wall.html

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