Hanging pictures at a windy time of year

I was on holiday not long ago in a fantastic part of this beautiful country and walking along the foreshore with my family I noticed out of the corner of my eye three large canvases in a favourite restaurant of mine literally flapping in the wind. They were above a table in the entrance near the front of the restaurant which is quite a popular place to sit but more importantly the first thing passers by would notice.

I decided there and then that I would write this post as a tribute to the importance of using a professional to install pictures not only in a commercial environment but also in your home. Experience comes into play in many areas of hanging pictures, not only positioning of art and how it works in relation to furniture, weight distribution and baring loads, but in this case how it works in relation to the situation of windows and doors.

If in most situations you have a tunnel of air created by the layout of a corridor or if some windows have been opened to utilise a natural breeze. If art work is hung in the midst of this it is likely to move around. Canvases are among the most vunerable as they are usually quite light and form the perfect sail to catch the wind.

There are a few things you can do to stop this from happening to your fragile, sentimentle and much loved pictures.

1. Call upon the experience of a professional... (1300 88 36 45 click here for serviced areas)

2. Fix D-rings or Strap-hangers about one third of the way down on both sides of your picture and use a deep hook for each fixing directly to the wall, (a deep hook is much less likely to be lifted or knocked off by mistake).

3. By far the most secure way to do this is to lock the picture to the wall, take a look at these: Springlock is primarily used to secure pictures to a wall so they can not be removed unless you have a key. There are two ways they can be used:

The first - Use the SPR2 kit, each Springlock fixes  one third of the way down on either side of the frame and locks over some screws that is fixed to the wall.

The second - Use the SPR1 kit, this contains two Topslots which are fixed to the top of the frame in each corner and has a 'T' shaped slot that fits over some screws that are fixed in to the wall, at the bottom of the frame a Springlock is attached and locks over a third screw securing the art work to the wall.

A key is used to unlock them - SPRK

These Springlock system is primarily used for the security aspect in public areas, Galleries, Holiday apartments etc but lends itself perfectly to windy days.

By Luke Norman