Which type of hook should I use for my wall?

Hooks are the fixing people install most often and think about least, which is why coats end up on the floor. The hook itself is rarely the weak link — what it is fixed into almost always is, and matching the two is the entire decision.

Step by step

1. Work out what the wall is.Tap it, and push a pin in. Hollow with a pin that goes in easily is plasterboard. Solid with a pin that will not enter is masonry with plaster on it. Both are common in the same house.
2. Solid plaster over masonry: use a hardwall hook.A brass or steel hook with one, two or three hardened pins that drive at an angle into the plaster. They hold more than they look as though they should, they make a tiny hole, and they are graded by the number of pins.
3. Masonry with a real load: use a screw hook and a plug.A cup hook, an L hook or a coat hook screwed into a plugged hole. This is the answer for anything you will actually hang weight on, and it lets you use the plug size the load needs.
4. Plasterboard: find the stud, or use a proper cavity fixing.A pin hook driven into plasterboard has almost nothing to grip. Either hit a stud, or use a self-drive plug, a metal anchor or a toggle sized for the load.
5. Coat hooks and racks: fix into timber, always.Coats are heavier than people expect and a coat rack is pulled downwards and outwards by someone in a hurry. A rack should be screwed to a timber batten fixed into studs or into masonry, not hung on the board.
6. Adhesive hooks: check the surface and the weight, honestly.They work on smooth, clean, non-porous surfaces — gloss paint, tile, glass, sealed wood. They do not work on textured paint, wallpaper, matt emulsion or anything dusty, and the rated weight assumes a straight downward pull.
7. Over-door and over-rail hooks where you cannot fix at all.In rented property, on a door, on a radiator, on a shelf edge. No fixing at all, no damage, and modest capacity.
8. Match the hook to the direction of pull.A cup hook takes a downward load. A hook screwed into a ceiling is in pure tension, which is the hardest case. A hook that will be pulled outwards — a towel rail, a dog lead hook — needs a fixing chosen for pull-out, not just weight.
9. Spread a rack over several fixings.One hook holding a whole family's coats is a single point of failure. A rack fixed at several points into timber distributes the load and survives being leaned on.

Tips

• Hardwall picture hooks are graded by pin count and are rated per hook. Two hooks spaced apart carry more than one bigger one and stop the item tilting.
• In lath and plaster, a pin hook driven between the laths will pull straight out. Find a lath or the timber behind it.
• Removing an adhesive hook by pulling it off the wall takes the paint with it. Most are designed to be released by stretching the tab slowly downwards.

Common mistakes

• Driving a pin-type picture hook into plasterboard — The pins have nothing to grip and the board crumbles around them. It may hold a light frame and it will not hold anything else.
• Hanging a coat rack on plasterboard fixings — Wet coats and bags are heavy, and the rack is pulled outwards as well as down. It needs a batten into studs.