Good morning, Home Improvement board!

I have a flag pole bracket that similar to the one below.



Previously, it was attached to the brick faade of the house. The front side gets pretty substantial winds, and ultimately it moved around enough that it sheared off the tapcon masonry screws. I'm trying to think of a solution and thought I would ask the board for ideas.

One thought was to mount a decorative wooden board to the house, then mount the flag pole bracket to that wooden board. Something like the pic below.




The thought is that this might help distribute the forces a little better if I secure the board to the exterior, then secure the mount through the board and into the exterior. Added benefit of covering up the unsightly shorn tapcons.

Any other ideas? Am I off base here?

Install it with tapcons.

I did, and that's what sheared off. Now I have a nice looking blue circle where the body of the screw sits inside the brick (I used a masonry bit and hammer drill to go into the brick itself as opposed to the mortar, assuming the mortar would be too soft for the torque involved in the wind forces).

agnerd said:

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Move it an inch over, use the same fasteners, but this time tighten the fasteners to make sure there's no movement when the wind blows? The little aluminum flag pole that comes with that bracket should break before the fasteners shear off unless they're constantly being cycled and fatigued over a long period of time.

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The bracket is cast iron, I think. Maybe I should swap out one that flexes more.

EZ out the tapcon, then use the plastic anchor sleeves and screw the flagpole holder into those. The plastic should flex a little bit.

However, a small aluminum flagpole should never be enough to break the head off a tapcon. You either got a dud, or you did something wrong.

Use a large tapcon. You might have to drill out the aluminum but it looks like there is plenty of beef to handle a slightly larger hole. I also put some epoxy on my tapcons and they have held up and the flag pole broke first.

Sounds good. I will try and re-drill with epoxy and larger tapcons. Thanks, all.

I've had tapcon heads shear as well but only during installation. I use a hammer drill/masonry bit to pre-drill, then an impact driver to place the Tapcon. It's frustrating when you use the the appropriate drill bit per the instructions then the head snaps off at the last second.

Not sure if my issue was not cleaning the hole enough, didn't get the hold wide enough, or not deep enough. I'm always cautious using a hammer drill because I've had them create a hole that is too big. Probably from not cleaning it out enough during the drill process or moving the drill up/down/left/right accidentally if I'm at an awkward angel.