My kitchen wall unit has dropped or pulled away from the wall — what do I do?

A wall unit gives warning before it falls, and the warning is a gap opening along the top where the unit meets the wall. That gap means the unit is rotating away from the wall, which means the lower bracket screw — the one that pulls it back — is losing its grip. It gets worse under load and it does not recover.

Safety

What you'll need

• Torch
• Screwdriver
• Spirit level
• Stud detector, or a bradawl (optional)
• Hardwood dowel and PVA, or threaded inserts (optional)
• Correct wall fixings for the wall type (optional)

Step by step

1. Empty it completely, now.Every plate, every tin. This is not a precaution, it is the first step of the repair, and it is what stops a diagnosis becoming an accident.
2. Read the gap.Gaping at the top and tight at the bottom means the unit is rotating away from the wall: the lower bracket screw or the wall fixing at the top of the rail is failing. Dropped straight down at one end means the bracket has slipped on the rail or the bracket screws have torn out on that side.
3. Look inside the top rear corners with a torch.Check whether the bracket is still firmly screwed to the side panel, whether its screws are standing proud, and whether the chipboard around them has crumbled.
4. Check the bracket's own adjusting screws.The lower one draws the unit back to the wall and it can simply back off over years. If everything else is sound, tightening it may be the whole repair — but only if the screws holding the bracket to the carcass are solid.
5. Check the rail.Look behind the unit at the rail itself. A rail that has pulled away from the wall, bent, or lifted at one end is a wall fixing failure, and the unit has to come down.
6. Establish what the wall is.Masonry, or plasterboard on studs, or plasterboard dot-and-dabbed onto masonry. This decides everything about the refix, and it is worth finding out properly rather than guessing.
7. Repair torn-out bracket screws in the chipboard properly.Drill out, glue a hardwood dowel in with the grain running across the panel, cure overnight, then re-drill and screw. Threaded inserts also work well here. A longer screw does not.
8. Refix the rail into something structural.In masonry, long screws with proper frame fixings into brick or block. On a stud wall, into the studs — find them properly with a detector or a bradawl through the board, and mark them. Never rely on plasterboard anchors alone.
9. Rehang, level with the upper screws, pull in with the lower.Get the unit onto the rail, level it along the run with the upper adjusters, then tighten the lower adjusters until the unit sits flat to the wall with no gap.
10. Reload lighter than before, and check it in a month.Heavy items into a base unit. Then look at the top gap again in a few weeks. A repair that is going to fail shows within the first month.

Tips

• Take a photograph of the gap before you do anything, with a ruler in shot. It is the only way to be sure in a month's time whether it has moved again.
• If several units in a run have moved together, suspect the rail and the wall. If one has moved on its own, suspect that unit's brackets and the screws into its chipboard.
• Dot-and-dab plasterboard is the case that catches people out. The board is 20 to 40mm off the masonry, so the screw has to be long enough to get real depth in the brick, and the board must not be crushed as the fixing tightens.

Common mistakes

• Tightening the adjusters with the unit still loaded — You are asking failing screws to carry the load and take a tightening force at the same time. That is the moment they let go.
• Putting longer screws into a torn-out chipboard hole — Chipboard fails by crushing. A longer screw crushes more of it and can burst through the visible face of the unit.
• Refixing into plasterboard with heavy-duty anchors and calling it done — No plasterboard anchor is designed to hold a loaded wall unit in shear over decades. The rail has to reach the studs or the masonry behind.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask