A grab bar does not have to go into a stud

A homeowner has a towel bar beside her bathtub, and for years she's been grabbing it on the way out. She knows it isn't built to hold her. Last week it proved it: she leaned on it stepping over the edge, and one end pulled loose from the wall. She caught herself on the edge of the sink. That was enough.

So she calls a handyman to install a real grab bar, and she shows him where: the same spot her hand already goes.

He runs a stud finder over the wall and shakes his head. No stud there. The nearest one is ten inches to the left, so that's where the bar goes. It's solid, it looks fine, and he's gone in an hour.

The next morning she steps out of the tub and reaches for the spot where her hand always goes. The grab bar is ten inches away, past where she can comfortably reach with one foot on wet tile. So she grabs the towel bar, which is back on the wall now, held by the same anchors that let go last week.

The handyman did careful work. He just didn't know he had another option. Scenes like this play out in bathrooms all over the country, and the bar that's a little too far away is the one nobody notices until someone falls reaching past it.

Where the idea comes from

Most people have heard some version of "a grab bar has to go into a stud." It sounds right. Studs are the solid wood framing inside a wall, and a bar that's screwed into one isn't going anywhere.

That part is true. A bar mounted into studs is a good installation. Emilio Baires, who wrote our certification course and has installed more than a thousand bars without a failure, calls it the simplest install there is.

The problem is "has to." Studs are sixteen to twenty-four inches apart, depending on the wall, and they were placed by a builder who was framing a wall, not planning a bathroom. The right spot for a grab bar is decided by the person using it: where their hand goes when they step out of the shower or stand up from the toilet. Often enough, those two things don't line up. If studs were the only option, a lot of bathrooms would be out of luck.

What a grab bar needs

A grab bar needs solid structure, anchored properly. That's the whole requirement.

A stud is one kind of solid structure. A load-rated anchor designed for grab bars, set correctly into sound wall sheathing like drywall, plaster, or tile, is another. The anchors a certified installer uses are built to hold well over two hundred pounds each, and a bar uses more than one. They're a correct solution in their own right, not a compromise for when the studs aren't cooperating.

What a grab bar does not need is the little plastic anchor that held up the towel bar. Those are rated for hanging a picture. A grab bar has to hold a person's full weight in the moment they catch themselves, which is a lot more force than their weight on a scale. That is the difference between an anchor built for this work and one that isn't, and it's a difference you can't see once the bar is on the wall.

How a professional decides

When a certified installer comes to your home, here's roughly what happens before the first hole.

They hold the bar where you need it. Not where the wall is convenient, but where your hand goes. That spot is the starting point, and the rest of the job is figuring out how to make it work there.

Then they check the wall. They press on it to see if it flexes. They look for signs of water damage. If it's tile, they tap it and listen for hollow spots. A wall that fails those checks can't take a bar in that spot no matter what's behind it, and a good installer will tell you so.

Then they find out what's inside. Sometimes a stud lands right where it's needed. Sometimes one end of the bar can reach a stud and the other can't, so they use a stud on one side and a rated anchor on the other. Sometimes neither end reaches a stud, and they use anchors on both. All three are sound installations when the wall is in good shape and the anchors are the right kind.

Then they test it. Before they leave, they put their weight on that bar the way you will. It should not move, and it should not make a sound. If it does, they fix it.

What to ask

If an installer tells you a grab bar can't go where you need it, ask one question: "Is it the wall, or is it the studs?"

If the wall is the problem, that's a real answer. Some surfaces can't safely hold a bar, and there are other solutions for those bathrooms.

If the answer is only "there's no stud there," you're talking with someone who hasn't been trained in the anchoring that makes this work possible. That's not a knock on them. There has never been a professional certification standard for who installs grab bars, so most people in the trade learned what they know on the job. But it is a reason to find someone who has the training.

For the homeowner reaching past her grab bar, the fix is a second visit from someone who knows what the wall can do: a bar exactly where her hand lands, anchored into solid structure, and tested before they leave.

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Greg Cantori
Co-Founder & CEO, Grab Bar Installers Association of America