Tool
Renter Check
Three questions, 40 possible combinations, and one answer with its reasoning attached. It tells you which mount suits your wall, how that mount fails on that particular surface, and what is left behind when it comes off.
It is not a legal document and it has not read your lease. Everything it does not take into account is listed underneath it, in plain language, rather than buried in a footnote.
What is the wall or floor made of
What are you putting up
Does it have to come off when you leave
Use this mount
Hanging mounts
It has to come off, and this surface is one where removing an adhesive pad takes paint, gloss or paper with it. Hang it instead, from a door, a rod or the shower arm, so nothing bonds to the wall in the first place.
- What it holds
- Whatever the host component holds, minus a margin, through a hook in pure downward load.
- How it fails on painted drywall
- Ideal, because the wall carries nothing. Marks where it swings and touches, and that is the extent of it.
- What is left after you take it off
- Scuffs where it swung against the wall, and wear marks on the host component. On this surface specifically: Paint, and under the paint the paper face of the board. This is the surface where removal does real damage.
- All 2 listings in this catalog with this mount
Three things this answer does not change. Adhesive can pull paint off a wall when it comes away. Holes drilled in tile are effectively permanent, because matching a discontinued tile is not realistic. And what you are allowed to fix to a wall is decided by your own tenancy agreement, which you should read: this site does not give legal advice.
The rules this tool applies, in order
- A mat on the floor is not mounted to anything, so the surface of your walls has no bearing on it. The answer is always portable.
- A rack over the toilet carries its load into the floor through its own feet. The wall behind it does not hold it up, so the wall surface does not change the answer. It is always freestanding, and it is always a tipping question rather than a bonding question.
- It has to come off, and this surface is one where removing an adhesive pad takes paint, gloss or paper with it. Hang it instead, from a door, a rod or the shower arm, so nothing bonds to the wall in the first place.
- It has to come off, and this surface is glazed tile or glass, where removing an adhesive pad usually leaves residue rather than damage. Adhesive is the reasonable choice here, fitted inside a single tile where the surface is tiled.
- It can stay, but this surface cannot be drilled under any circumstances, because tempered glass shatters completely when it is penetrated. Adhesive is the only fixed option on a glass panel.
- It can stay, so the strongest mount this surface allows is a fastener through the wall. That is permanent, and in tile it is permanent in a way that shows. This site gives no drilling instructions and no advice about what your lease permits.
What this mount answer does not take into account
- What your tenancy agreement actually says. This tool reads none of it, and this site does not give legal advice.
- The weight of what you are putting up. No listing in this catalog states a weight limit except one, and a mount that suits your wall can still be overloaded.
- The condition of your particular wall: how old the paint is, whether it was applied over wallpaper, whether the tile is loose, whether the grout is sound.
- What is inside the wall. That question decides whether drilling is even a possibility, and it is not one a web page can answer for you.
- Tension mounts, which this tool never recommends. Friction on a wet surface is the wrong mechanism for a bathroom, and it is covered on its own page.