How can I hang pots on my brick wall with the least amount of drilling?

Question

I'd like to hang my pots and pans, but the only exposed wall is brick, and the kitchen is too narrow to hang them from the ceiling. This is a 100+ year old rental building, so I would like to avoid drilling into the brick as much as possible. There's one existing anchor in the wall at about the right height, so I could use that and drill one more hole (the other existing anchors are filled in with cement).

I was considering this rack but I realized that would require 4 holes, and if the left and right holes are not spaced exactly right, I'll be drilling into the brick instead of the mortar.

My other main thought is to get some piece of wood and stain it, and mount that with two screws. Then I could either get a rack like the one above and mount that to the wood, or just put individual hooks in the wood. Would that work? What kind of lumber would I need?

Either way, what kind of anchors should I use for this? There are many options at this page.

Answer 1

you definitely don't want to drill into the brick. Drilling into the mortar isn't too bad though, and easily repairable if ever desired.

I've used Tapcons for anchoring into mortar. They work well:

The box will say what size masonry drill bit you need to pre-drill, then you just screw them in with your driver like any screw. I'd suggest longer is better (though no longer than the width of the brick, as that may be as thick as the brick is.)

Also, make sure this brick you are drilling into isn't a chimney. If it is, make sure it's either not in use, or has a metal flu inside (and don't puncture the flu)

Your idea of installing a wood cross-member into the brick and then hang something from there isn't a bad idea. I'd suggest 3 screws, then perhaps attach peg board to that, hanging the pots from peg board ala Julia Child