Attaching Shutters To Brick Homes

Welcome back guys, this is the Tightwad and today I'm going to show you how to replace your vinyl or plastic shutters on a brick house. This will also work for other types of siding but today I'm showing you specifically the way that I do it on the bricks. I found that most of these shutters are put in with these plastic pieces and they simply don't work. They break, they get brittle over time and just snap off or they just pull out of the holes. So I'm going to show you a way that I've found that since I've started doing it I haven't had a single shutter come off and none of the fasteners have come loose. So I'm going to start by removing these plastic pieces and then we'll get started. When you're removing your shutters be careful because there are bugs and stuff behind them. This is just a dirt dobber's nest and it's most likely dormant already. But there can be spiders and things in behind your shutters so be careful with that. So you can see that these two plastic pieces up top here broke off inside the mortar and that can pose a potential problem. I'm going to try to get them out whole using my pliers but a lot of times they break off in there and I actually have to drill them out. So you see that one already snapped. I can still grab a little of it so I'm going to see if I can get it out. So I was able to pull it out so that was fortunate. I'm going to try this next one now. Oh and that one snapped off right at the mortar line so probably not going to get it out. So instead I'm just going to try to drill straight through it. So the easiest way I've found to get out these plastic anchors is to get a small drill bit and drill a pilot hole through the center and then progressively get larger until you're able to drill the whole thing out. So I'm going to start with a small one right in the center. And I got a little pilot hole started so now it'll be easier to step up to probably two sizes larger of a drill bit and keep drilling it out. So I have my next size drill bit here and now I should be able to step up to the actual size of the hole and get the rest out. For that one hole since it still has a bit of the anchor in it I'm going to switch over to the hammer drill option. It is given a slight hammering effect which works a lot better in masonry like mortar or brick or concrete. So that's what the hammer drill setting is for. I do have a masonry bit in here and I'll be able to drill out the remainder of that hole. I'm going to be using these drywall slash concrete anchors today. So I need the holes to be clear so that I can drive that inside the hole. These are made so that once the screw goes in this side the back side expands and separates by the screw penetrating it and that will hold the shutters in place. With that done I'm going to test and make sure my anchors are large enough. They do fit a little bit loosely in the holes but I'm going to go ahead and put a screw in and give it a good tug and see if it's going to hold well. Before doing this don't forget to switch your drill off of the hammer setting. With the screw drilled into the anchor I can pull on it and try to wiggle it and it doesn't move at all. So I know this is good enough for my application. I am going to be adding washers on this side of the shutter just to hold it in. And since the screws and the washers are silver in color I'm going to go ahead and spray paint those before I put all this up. And I'm going to use a black color so that it blends in with my shutters. One tip I want to share when spray painting hardware for projects is I like to just screw the tips of them into cardboard. This is just a cardboard box lid. And if you're spraying things like washers they're going to fly all over the place so you can either put them on tape or if you're pairing them with screws go ahead and put the screws through the washer so that it holds it in place. And all we need to paint is the tip of the screws and then the washer itself. We don't need to get the threads but if it gets on there it's fine. It's not going to show and it's not going to really hamper the ability of the screw to thread itself into the anchor. So I'm just going to lightly spray the tips with this making sure all the washers are coated. And now I'm going to let this air dry and in about 30 minutes we'll be ready to use these. I gave it about 30 minutes for the paint to dry on my screws and washers and then we had a short rain shower. So I'm back out here now ready to hang the shutters. And I'm going to be putting the washer on the screw like this and then through the hole in the shutter and lining up. I like to start with the hardest corner first. So I'll put it right over the anchor there. Make sure it's still right. And I'm not going to tighten it all the way down on this first one. I'm actually going to come down and do the opposite corner on the bottom. And once I have those two in, everything else should line up. One thing I want to show you that I've done is I put a magnet on the side of my drill so I can hold small things like washers very easily to it. So I just stick them to the side. I can stick screws or nails on there if I need to. So now I'm going to move to the opposite corner down here like I said and go ahead and get it started. And I'm not going to put it in very far at all right now because I still want to be able to see behind the shutter so that I can line all of my screws up before I tighten any of them down. So I'm going to shift to the middle. Now to the other bottom one. And now the last one right up here on top. And now that they're all in place, I can go ahead and tighten them all down. And now the shutter is mounted and the screws blend in. You'll never even notice that they're not the plastic kind unless you get up close and you'll see even the plastic kind of faded out on my other ones. I don't pop my shutters off to do this process, but if they come loose, I definitely go ahead and remove everything on it and start over using the screws. And these should last a lifetime. I hope you found this video helpful. If you did, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. Check out the description or the pinned comment for links to some of the materials that I used today. Leave any questions you might have in the comments section below. Check me out on Instagram to see some behind the scenes footage or see some of the videos before they're even released. Click any of the videos shown on the screen right now and they'll open right up on your device. I hope you guys have a great day.