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I have a 100-year-old garage made of yellow bricks and with plastered walls inside. The paint and the plaster on the walls are chipping due to humidity and age. A part of the walls has been covered with OSB panels (18mm thickness, 690x2440mm size with tongue and groove) to great effect by the previous owner using Fischer Hammerfix N-S hammer-in plugs. I would like to continue this project and cover all the walls, but I am not entirely sure about the safety of the relatively short/thin fasteners used by the previous owner.

Below is a cross section of the wall, where the old mortar (not sure of the composition) has been removed from the bricks (inside the yellow line).

picture of the wall

I have had a look at the frame-fixing material, but I cannot figure out what the allowed loads are for the type of wall I am facing: One to two centimetres of brittle old mortar and plaster and then old bricks. I would love to hear from someone more experienced about this. Are hammer-in fasteners safe, and if yes, what length, thickness and number per panel, given the properties of the wall and the fact that we may want to hang stuff on the panels afterwards (tools, pegboards, etc.)?

Moreover, I will be installing some regular metal shelving afterwards and obviously I would like to fasten them to the walls (which by then will be panelled). What is the method to ensure their safe installation?

retrography
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  • Humidly might be a concern. Mould likes dark damp places with little air movement. – crip659 Nov 17 '21 at 14:52
  • There is enough air circulation, and as a result, there is no mold. It's humidity over time that has affected the plaster. Humidity is from the air outside, not from within the walls. The walls are perfectly dry. – retrography Nov 17 '21 at 15:01
  • While it would obviously take more time & money than you're planning on, it might be worth it to remove the softening and chipping plaster and redo it properly. Then you'll know exactly what's back there and you'll be confident of having a sturdy structure that you know will last another 100 years. – FreeMan Nov 17 '21 at 17:29
  • are you in a seismic zone? How thick is the brick wall? Has it been repointed? Typically brick is a veneer and brick ties are used to hold the brick to wood framing. Are you saying plaster is directly adhered on the brick with no dimensional framing? – Fresh Codemonger Nov 17 '21 at 17:55
  • @FreshCodemonger I am as far away from seismic zones as possible. No risk there. These are really brick walls. There is no wood framing. And of course there is a layer of mortar/gypsum/cement between the bricks and the plaster, but it is pretty brittle. See the photo. That whole layer plus the plaster is between one and two centimetres thick. The wall is 11 to 11.5 centimetres thick, including the bricks. The bricks are solid bricks. No hole inside. – retrography Nov 17 '21 at 19:18
  • @FreeMan I know what is back there. See the photo that I just uploaded. Trimming the plaster / mortar from the wall is really not an option right now, unfortunately. – retrography Nov 17 '21 at 19:22
  • I meant the _quality_ of what was there, but failed to actually say it. – FreeMan Nov 17 '21 at 19:24
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    ok so you have a single course ~4" thick brick wall with no framing on the inside of the wall. I'd build a standard 2x4 stud wall on the inside of it. This could allow you to run electrical, insulate, etc. Once the studs are in place even without sheathing it you could mount thing easily to the studs in a standard / strong / safe fashion. 2x4s are cheap - putting up osb panels would be more expensive and more labor intense. – Fresh Codemonger Nov 17 '21 at 22:02

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