Weekend Bars

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Weekend Bars

The weekend bathroom-safety kit for your parent’s house.

Weekend Bars is reader-supported. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a commission. Most grab bars are not covered by Medicare; confirm with their plan. This is not medical advice.

This is the tiled-shower job: ceramic or porcelain over drywall or cement board, screws into wood studs, or Moen SecureMount anchors where a stud isn’t there.

It is not fiberglass. It is not a painted drywall powder room. It is not a suction cup. Those are different pages.

You are the adult child with a Saturday, a parent’s house, and a shower that is already tiled. The bar should look like the rest of the bath when you leave.

The only decision that matters

A screw-in bar is a wall product. The rating on the box assumes the screws hit wood, or the hollow-wall hardware the maker named.

  • Into a stud: Amazon Basics lists 500 lb when properly installed in a wall stud or another secure mounting surface. Moen Home Care lists 500 lb when installed in a stud.
  • Off-stud with Moen SecureMount: the anchor spec is 300 lb, in approved substrates, with 3½” of space behind the wall. That is not the bar’s 500 lb number. Print 300.
  • Suction is a balance hold on the right glossy tile. It is not this install. Safe-er-Grip’s own limit: not full body weight; will not work on drywall, fiberglass, or marble; not over grout.

If you cannot hit a stud and you are not buying the matching hollow-wall anchor for that bar, stop. Do not use the plastic wall anchors that come in a random hardware kit and call it done.

What you actually need

The bar

  • Entry, looks like hardware: Amazon Basics 24″ grab bar, ASIN B079LKHXTV (brushed stainless, $24.56 on Amazon.com, Aug 31, 2026). Same listing has a 16″ size for a vertical piece at the entry. 16″ street price was unverified that day — check the size selector before you buy two.
  • Better, finish-matched, Moen flanges: Moen Home Care 24″ 8724, ASIN B013P49Y2M ($27.29 that day). Anchors sold separately.
  • If a 24″ bar will not land on two studs (common: studs at 16″ on center): Moen SecureMount SMA1005CH, ASIN B004Q02FX0, two anchors, $10.84 each that day. Moen bars only. 1¼” hole. 300 lb. Approved substrates on the SMA spec sheet include ½” or ⅝” drywall with tile.

A 16″ vertical at the shower entry is a second bar, not a longer 24″ turned on end. Buy two pieces in the same finish.

Tools

  • Stud finder that can work through tile, or the old method: measure from a corner, tap, and confirm with a 1/8″ pilot
  • Level, pencil, painter’s tape
  • Drill. Not hammer-drill mode on tile
  • 1/8″ masonry/carbide or diamond-tipped bit for the stud pilots (Moen: 1/8″ pilots into wood)
  • For SecureMount: 1¼” carbide-tipped hole saw, because you are opening tile plus the wall
  • Phillips screwdriver (Moen ships Phillips wood screws; Amazon Basics hardware is the usual complaint — upgrade the screws if they strip)
  • Silicone bathroom caulk
  • Safety glasses

Porcelain is harder than glazed ceramic. If you do not know which they have, use a diamond bit and go slow. Do not guess with a cheap twist bit.

1. Decide where the hand goes

Typical weekend layout in a 60″ alcove:

  • One horizontal 24″ on the long wall, about where a standing person would reach, and
  • One vertical 16″ on the entry wall, on the side they use to step in

Start the horizontal bar around 33–36 inches off the finished floor. That is a starting range, not a code inspection. Then have them stand in the dry shower (shoes off, towel on the floor) and move the tape to where their hand actually lands. The 16″ vertical at the entry follows the same rule: start on the wall they use to step in, then shift to their hand. Measure the parent, not a diagram. Find studs after the tape is honest.

Horizontal: both ends of a 24″ bar are about 24″ apart. Studs are usually 16″ on center. A 24″ bar often cannot hit two studs. That is the fork: move the bar so one or both flanges sit on wood, go vertical on a single stud, or use SecureMount on the hollow end.

Moen: both ends must sit on a wood stud unless you are using SecureMount. Angled install only on bars 24″ or longer.

2. Find the studs through tile

Tile fools cheap stud finders. Run it slowly. Mark both edges of the stud, then the center. Confirm on the other end of the bar.

If the finder is noisy, measure 16″ from an inside corner, then 32″, and confirm with a 1/8″ pilot in the grout line if you can — grout is cheaper to patch than a cracked field tile.

You want the center of the stud, not the edge. A screw in the last ¼” of a stud is a miss.

3. Mark the flange, then tape the tile

Hold the bar in place with a level. Trace the flange. Mark every screw hole.

Painter’s tape over the marks. The tape keeps the bit from skating and catches the glaze chips.

If the flange lands across a grout line, shift it. You want screws in the field of the tile or fully in grout, not half-on-half-off.

4. Drill the tile without cracking it

This is the part people rush.

  • No hammer mode. Rotary only.
  • Start the hole at a slight angle to bite, then straighten. Or use a punch on tape to nick the glaze.
  • Slow speed. Let the bit cut. Pushing is how porcelain stars.
  • A spray bottle of water on the bit helps on porcelain. Do not soak the wall cavity.
  • Drill the glaze, then the tile body, then you will feel the cement board or drywall, then (if you aimed right) wood.
  • Moen stud install: 1/8″ pilots at the marked screws, into the stud.
  • Blow the dust out. Do not drive a screw into a packed hole.

If the tile spiders, stop. That tile is done. You can still use a larger flange cover, or move the bar. Do not keep drilling a cracked piece and hope the screw clamps it back together.

5. Fasten into wood

Moen Designer / Home Care (stud):

  1. Screws must go into a wood stud.
  2. Slide the decorative cover back. Leave the protective plastic on the cover until the end.
  3. Three screws per flange, washers on, into the stud at whatever angle the slots allow.
  4. Optional: silicone on the back of the decorative cover (INS10840) or on the back of the SecureMount plate (INS10757) so water does not sit behind the flange.
  5. Snap the cover on.

Amazon Basics and similar concealed-flange bars: same idea, fewer slots. If the included screws are short or Phillips-soft, use #10 or #12 stainless wood screws long enough to bite 1″+ of stud after tile and board. Do not use drywall screws. They snap.

Tug test: one firm pull, your weight not fully on it, before anyone else uses it. If it ticks or the flange lifts, it is not in wood. Back out. Do not caulk over a miss.

6. If you missed the stud

For a Moen bar, this is the documented hollow-wall path, not a hardware-store toggle:

SecureMount SMA spec (SMA1000 family; Amazon SMA1005CH is the current single-anchor SKU):

  • Approved: ½” or ⅝” drywall, drywall with tile, drywall with marble, ⅛” or ¼” fiberglass surround
  • Needs 3½” empty space behind the wall
  • 1¼” hole at each mount
  • Guide sleeve UP regardless of bar orientation
  • 300 lb, not 500
  • Moen bars only (hole pattern)

You are cutting a 1¼” hole through tile. That is a hole saw, carbide or diamond, tape, slow. It is still a Saturday job. It is not a 1/8″ pilot.

Amazon Basics does not use Moen’s flange. Do not force SMA under a Basics bar. If the Basics bar missed the stud, either move it onto wood or step up to the Moen kit.

Plastic expansion anchors in tile, or molly bolts into drywall behind tile, are not a published rating for these bars. Don’t.

When to stop

Stop the job. Do not invent a mount.

  • You cannot put a flange on a wood stud and you are not buying the maker’s named hollow-wall hardware (for Moen, SecureMount). Plastic anchors and toggle bolts are not a substitute.
  • The tile spiders or cracks. That piece is done. Move the bar or stop.
  • The stall is a thin fiberglass surround. This page is tile. Open /guides/install-grab-bar-on-fiberglass.
  • You are reaching for a suction cup because the drill felt like a lot. Suction is a different product with a different limit. It does not finish this install.
  • The flange lifts or ticks on a one-firm-pull tug test. Back the screws out. You missed wood.

A half-mounted bar is worse than no bar. Leave the holes taped and come back with the Better kit, or call it for the day.

Finish matching

Match the shower trim, not the towel bar in the hall. Brushed nickel with brushed nickel. Chrome with chrome. Amazon Basics is brushed stainless — close to brushed nickel, not chrome. Moen 8724 is stainless; the designer line (LR8724D3CH) is the one with chrome / brushed nickel options if the valves are decorative.

One weekend, one finish. Mixing chrome and brushed in the same stall looks like a kit.

What to tell them when you leave

The bar is only as good as the wood or the named anchor behind it. If something loosens, it is a screw problem, not a “the bar wore out” problem. Recheck in a month.

Suction cups in the same stall are optional for a light balance hold on large, smooth, grout-free tile. They are not a backup for a missed stud.

Shop the weekend kit

This page’s kit is Shower Entry: 24″ + 16″ Amazon Basics, same family, screw-in.

If the studs will not line up, use Shower Better: Moen 8724 + two SecureMount anchors.

Next: /guides/install-grab-bar-on-drywall, /guides/install-grab-bar-on-fiberglass, /guides/suction-vs-screw-in-grab-bars, /guides/find-studs-in-a-shower.