Walls – Drilling into a outside house wall

walls

I want to drill into a outside house wall to mount one end of a pull-up bar. The other end will be drilled and mounted into a cinder block wall. For the outside house wall, I’ve thought about drilling at the corner, cause I think that is where the most support will be. Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this? Anything I need to consider?

Best Answer

Your primary concern will be that you're putting a hole into the outside of your house that will let water (and bugs and, possibly other things) into your house. Therefore, it is critical that you ensure that when you're done, the hole is water tight. Water leaking into the wall, especially if it's a wood-framed house will lead to rotting out the sill and studs, and the cost to repair that in a few years will be much greater than that of going to the gym to do your pull-ups.

The second concern is to ensure that the bar can support significantly more than your weight. Any jerkiness in your pull ups (on the way up or down) will exert more force than just your weight. To this end, you need to ensure that you're attaching to a stud (if a framed house), or that you're attaching into something solid (if a brick or block) house. If you've got poured concrete walls, your only concern (once you have a hole drilled) is ensuring that you've got a solid connection (use proper concrete toggles). Also, consider that once you've got this handy bar right next to the house, that you (or someone else) may use it for hanging other things of considerably greater than human weight on.

An additional concern is that at some point you may want to leave the house. This would mean selling (I presume you're not renting or you'd be asking the landlord about this). Is the next person going to want a pull-up bar attached to the outside of his house? Sure, it could be removed, but then you've got the stub where it was cut off, or holes where screws/bolts were removed. Might not look all that pretty when you (or they) are done, and make it more difficult to sell.

You may consider mounting it to the cinder block wall like a towel bar instead of crossing the span between the house and wall.

Oh, yeah, one more thing... Is that cinder block wall yours to be drilling into? (Just checking...)