Load ratings
What the number means.
Four short guides to reading and relying on the tables. Every item also carries its own figures, conditions and safety factor in the specification on its product page, and a printed card repeating them ships in the box.
The method, in one paragraph
Ten to twenty pieces are taken from the delivered batch and pulled on a bench rig in each substrate named in the table, at 68°F and at 12% moisture content for timber. Each substrate is run separately. The tested mean is divided by four — five on the timber fasteners — and it is that divided figure that appears on the page, alongside the conditions that governed it. Nothing in the catalog carries a figure copied from a supplier data sheet.
Reading the table
Every rated item has one row per substrate, and the rows differ by more than most people expect — a factor of four across the range on a masonry anchor is normal, not a misprint. Find the row for what you are actually fixing into. If your substrate is not in the table, it was not tested, and the nearest row is not an estimate of it.
Do
- Read the row for your substrate, not the largest number in the column.
- Read the note beside the figure. It carries the condition the result depends on — embedment, pilot size, board thickness, washer.
- Treat every figure as per fixing. Two fixings do not reliably hold twice as much unless they are spaced as the note says.
- Check the safety factor line under the table. It says what was divided out to get the published number.
Do not
- Do not interpolate between rows. Concrete and aerated block are not two points on a line, and nothing sensible lives between them.
- Do not apply a timber figure to sheet material. Plywood, OSB and chipboard behave nothing like solid stock in withdrawal.
- Do not use a tension figure for a shear application or the reverse. They are separate rows because they are separate numbers.
What the safety factor means
Every published figure is a working load: the tested mean divided by four, or by five on the timber fasteners. That division has already happened before the number reaches the page. It is not a margin for you to spend.
Do
- Design to the published figure directly. It is already the conservative number.
- Assume the factor covers ordinary variation — a batch that ran slightly soft, a hole a little off, a substrate slightly below spec.
- Ask us if you need the raw tested mean. We will give you the figure and the sample size.
Do not
- Do not multiply the published figure back up because you have seen a bigger number elsewhere. A supplier ultimate load and a working load are not comparable quantities.
- Do not spend the factor on shock loading. Every figure is a static load; anything that swings, drops or slams needs the fixing sized well above it.
- Do not treat the factor as a licence to skip the pilot or the edge distance. It covers variation, not omission.
The four conditions that actually govern
More fixings fall short of their rating through installation than through anything to do with the part. These four account for nearly all of it, and all four are free to get right.
Do
- Blow or brush the hole clean before an anchor goes in. Dust is the single largest cause of under-performance and it can cost more than half the load — considerably more on a resin anchor.
- Keep the stated edge distance and end distance. Closer in, the substrate splits or spalls before the fixing reaches its rating.
- Pilot in hardwood and near end grain, at the diameter given in the note.
- Drill the hole to full depth and reach the full embedment. A sleeve anchor seated short is holding on a fraction of its sleeve.
Do not
- Do not fix into a mortar joint when the table says brick body. The joint fails first and it takes the surrounding brick with it.
- Do not fix into damp plasterboard and expect the published figure. Damp board loses roughly a third of it.
- Do not over-tighten an expanding anchor. Past the seating point you strip the cone, and the anchor is then loose and cannot be removed or replaced in the same hole.
- Do not load a resin anchor before full cure — 24 hours at 68°F, and materially longer when it is cold.
Items with no load rating
A chisel, a marking knife, a pack of abrasives and a fastener case carry no working load. Their pages still have this section and it says so in as many words, because a silent empty table reads as an omission rather than an answer.
Do
- Read the geometry instead. On edge tools the specification that governs is the bevel angle and the hardness, and both are published.
- Read the cautions block. On an unrated item that is where the useful limits are — what will chip it, what will bend it, what it must not be struck against.
- Ask if you need a figure we have not published. If we have not measured it we will say so rather than estimate.
Do not
- Do not read the absence of a rating as an absence of a limit. A pry bar has a rating; a chisel does not, and the chisel is the one that will break first.
- Do not treat a clamp rating as a structural figure. Clamping force holds a joint closed in compression, and a clamp used in tension or overhead is a casting waiting to let go.
- Do not assume a kit inherits its parts' ratings as a set. Each item keeps its own, and the kit page lists them individually.
Where this page stops
Everything sold here is a general-purpose site and workshop fixing. None of it is an engineered fastener specified on a structural drawing, and nothing in the catalog is suitable for a safety-critical overhead fixing — anything suspended above people needs a designed anchor and an engineer, not a catalog figure. If a connection is carrying people, a vehicle, or a structure, the right answer is a specification, and we would rather say so than sell you a box.
If something has gone wrong anyway
Anything that arrives damaged or short is replaced or refunded in full — send a photograph within 14 days, or just tell us the count was wrong, and keep the packaging until we reply. See returns and refunds.
help@livwellhardware.com — Monday–Friday, 8:00am–5:00pm ET. Every message answered within one business day.