apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Does this really work? It's genius if it does!

Emily

"pack of $30 for $19.99 via Whatever Works."
30 - not $30
:-)

Whatever Works is a horrible company. I ordered some junk from them about a year ago and they didn't ship and didn't ship and didn't ship. I kept calling and emailing, just trying to get some info. After about 3 weeks I finally asked if they could cancel my order. They never contacted me but they shipped the junk. Now I get catalogs that never end. I asked them to stop sending them, but it has no effect.

the only similarity to the premises is that it secures something to drywall... other than that, there's a big difference in how each works and this one's likely prone to failure by design, imho.

billy mays or not, the hercules hook is a better design and causes less damage to the drywall in the end. also since it pokes through both sides of the paper and rests the weight on the sandwiched material, it has a better chance of holding without failure. once you tear drywall paper, there's no strength. the gypsum is only strong as long as there's solid paper on either side... and these poke 4 large holes in that paper so close to one another it's likely to tear and loose strength (delamination)... plus be a b!itch to patch later when it does tear and leave a quarter-sized divot.

the hercules hook (or one very similar -- depends on your store) can be had at your local target (in the as seen on TV aisle)... and as hokey as the infomercials are, they do work well -- it's a smart design.

I agree with Redneckmodern, I like the Hercules Hook better. I've used them all over my previous apartment and current apartment with no problems, and they only leave one little hole (that's easily covered by toothpaste!) The design seems better engineered to distribute the weight in a safe way.

ook brand hooks are used by galleries, very strong, very easy to install, leave very small holes. why would anyone use anything else?

they are available at home depot among other places.

ook(s) are a similar design to the above... better in that it makes smaller, fewer, less apt to tear holes, but since they do not penetrate both sides of the drywall are more prone to failure from delamination of the gypsum and/or tearing.

the thing about drywall is that -- unlike wood -- the gypsum itself has comparatively little strength outside what the paper (and general compaction) gives it... so something that penetrates both layers (and causes little damage to the integrity of the substrate when it does) works better than something that works against the inherent properties of the material.

it's hard to believe that something pitched on TV is actually good (hercules hooks), but props to whoever invented them... they'd be slightly better if the part that sat in the drywall was flat rather than round to distribute the weight a bit more. the flaw in the herc-hook is that with too much weight, the thin pin can tear downwards -- like a string in a fed-ex envelope.

I use something called "Monkey Hooks" that only make one tiny hole in drywall and can support up to 50 pounds. They are fantastic! I have them all over my apartment and have never had a problem.

http://monkeyhook.com/

I believe that the Monkey Hooks are the same as Hercules Hooks, just made by a different manufacturer.