How to drill a hole in a concrete wall. How to drill a hole in a wall - practical tips for different materials

Construction, finishing of premises, repairs, installation of equipment - this is an incomplete list of works, the production of which cannot be done without drilling holes in the walls. Holes are needed for laying communications, power and telephone lines, heating and sewage pipes. And even if you just need to hang a mirror in the hallway, you will have to drill. After all, you can’t drive a nail into a concrete wall.

Electric drill or hammer drill

Concrete itself is a very durable material. In addition, it often contains pieces natural stone, which is added to cement mortar to give extra strength. Drilling such a wall with a regular drill is useless. There are two ways to solve this problem:

• use a drill with a pobedite tip;
• use a diamond-coated drill.

Both a drill and a hammer drill are designed to drill holes. But if the drill simply turns the drill bit or other attachment, then the hammer combines the functions of torsion and impact. A drill can be used to drill iron, wood, brick or foam block walls. There are drills that combine the functions of torsion and impact. Their power is enough to drill a concrete wall without a hammer drill with a Pobedit or diamond drill with a diameter of no more than 10-12 millimeters. A hammer drill has more power and is capable of punching larger holes in walls.

Which tool to choose depends on the task at hand. If you need to make a couple of holes in the wall in order to hang a cabinet, then a regular drill with a Pobedit drill bit will cope with this task.

If you have to work a lot and often, then only a hammer drill will help out. Especially if you need to drill in load-bearing structures with increased concrete strength.

From theory to practice

In order to drill a small hole in a concrete wall, even a hammerless electric drill with a Pobedit drill bit is sufficient. To do this, the drill will need a little help. The hole formed in the wall must be hammered out from time to time with a metal punch pin with a diameter no larger than the hole itself. After making a few blows, you can continue drilling. In this way, alternating drilling with punching, you can make a hole required depth . It's long, but quite doable.

For the same task, you can use diamond-coated drills. Then you won't have to hammer anything. You just need to drill the concrete wall correctly, making sure that the electric drill and drill do not overheat.

A hammer drill with a Pobedit drill is the most universal solution where you need to do a large number of not many holes large diameter.

If, when drilling a slab, the drill hits the reinforcement, you need to change it to a regular one. A pobedite drill bit crushes the material rather than cuts it.

Large diameter crowns

The problem of drilling large holes can arise when laying, for example, sewage or ventilation systems. To make holes of significant diameter, special attachments called crowns are used. Their main difference from drills and augers is that they are hollow inside. This allows you to spend much less energy on drilling. The concrete drill bit is a hollow metal pipe. At one end there are several diamond-coated cutting protrusions. On the other side, a shank is welded for installation in a hammer drill or drill chuck. Crowns are available in various lengths and diameters.

Drilling with a diamond core can also be done manually. But not all such work can be done by hand. Drill a hole in concrete for a large diameter pipe, and even hand tools, impossible. Holes in thick load-bearing walls drill using a whole set of equipment, which includes:

• guide post;
• drive unit;
• electric motor with clamping chuck;
• crown of the required diameter.

The drilling process occurs as follows. A guide post is attached to the wall. A drive with an electric motor installed on it will move along it. A crown of the required diameter is clamped into the electric motor chuck. Continuously supplied to the drilling site cold water, which cools the tool and prevents dust formation.

Holes drilled in this way have a very clear boundaries and a smooth inner surface. It is also important that such installations allow drilling at a certain angle. This allows you to lay communications with minimal damage to the walls.

Diamond drilling rigs are not cheap, so you shouldn't buy one just to make a couple of small holes in the wall.

Precautionary measures

Of course, anyone can drill a couple of small holes in a concrete wall. It is enough to have a good drill with an impact function or a hammer drill, as well as a pobedite or diamond drill bit the right size. If you have to pull large-diameter pipes, for example, install a ventilation pipe from gas boiler, then it is better to entrust this matter to professionals. This will allow the work to be completed with the least cost and damage, and will also save the psyche of not only the apartment owner, but also his neighbors.

When drilling concrete walls, do not forget about the means personal protection. To avoid swallowing dust, you need to use a respirator. And special glasses will protect your eyes from small concrete chips getting into them.

It is impossible to provide all the holes and niches in the walls during the construction of the room. Therefore, after erecting a monolith, you have to drill it.

The most common construction material is concrete. The technique for making holes in this material differs from processing wood, brick and metal.

Drilling concrete - pitfalls

• Concrete produces a lot of dust when processed. It is harmful to the respiratory system, in addition, abrasive particles become clogged in ventilation holes tool. Cooling becomes difficult, and dust trapped inside contributes to accelerated wear. It is necessary to use devices to capture suspended matter. There are special attachments for vacuum cleaners, sometimes it’s enough just to replace the container.
• The structure of concrete does not form chips, so removing material from a deep hole is difficult. In order not to overload the drill, it is necessary to periodically (every 3-5 cm of passes) clean the hole with a vacuum cleaner. When working in a hole clogged with sludge, you can break the drill.
• The abrasive components of concrete contribute to strong heating from friction. The metal of the drill is “relaxed”, loses its hardness and quickly wears off. Therefore, it is advisable to provide liquid cooling, or at least take breaks during prolonged drilling.
• Power tools for drilling concrete (drills, hammer drills) have considerable weight. It is difficult to control the horizontal level. Therefore, for such work, it is recommended to equip the tool body with a small bubble level.
• Concrete is a heterogeneous material. In the thickness of the wall there are hard stones and steel reinforcement. When it hits such an obstacle, the drill tends to leave the trajectory. If you hit rebar- you should choose a different location for the hole or go through the area using a metal drill. Then continue working again with the same nozzle.
• Walls are usually thicker. The drill bit may not be long enough. If you do through hole, you can go through it from both sides. If possible, make precise markings, or determine the drilling point on the other side using a magnet and a compass.

Examples of drilling holes in concrete various instruments- video.

Tools for drilling holes in concrete

With ordinary drills made of high-speed or hardened steel, you will be able to drill one or two holes. After which the tool can be thrown away. To process concrete, a harder material is needed.

Pobedit drills

This alloy is so hard that it does not wear off under the influence of abrasives. However, hardness also implies fragility - it is impossible to make a drill neck out of pobedite; it will collapse from vibration and torque. Therefore, drills are made of ordinary steel, and a pobedite nozzle is soldered onto the working end.


The spiral for removing sludge is made wide, the edges are not intended for cutting action on concrete. The bit itself looks different from the cutting part of a regular drill. There are no usual hooks on the edge; the pobedite part is made in the form of a pointed chisel.

Important! Holes with a diameter of more than 20-25 mm are not possible using drills. Tubular crowns are required.

Diamond bits for drilling concrete

Making a nozzle from a diamond (even a technical one, artificially grown) is irrational and impractical. Crystal big size will quickly collapse, and the cost will be too high. Therefore, for drilling concrete, steel drill bits are used, with diamond chips soldered onto the working edge.


The tool is a hollow pipe. The working end has cuts for removing sludge. The advantage of such nozzles is that the hole is neat and precise. The disadvantages include the impossibility of centering when starting drilling, and the high power of the power tool.
For centering, either an axial pobedit drill is used,


or a guide for a drill (perforator).


Diamond drilling of holes in concrete requires forced cooling. The friction area is quite large, causing temperature overloads. From high temperature the bond of diamond chips loses strength and the crown begins to wear out.

Drilling is one of the most frequently performed operations by home craftsmen. And any master has encountered problems when drilling, especially if the work is delicate. And delicate work most often occurs: the drill is missing half a millimeter - the furniture door is skewed or a simple towel hook in the bathroom is askew, and it is impossible to re-drill: the tiles have just been laid. Grace and “oakiness” are incompatible, so you need to know how to drill correctly with a drill.

Safety

In terms of electrical safety, commercially available power tools belong to class II: double working insulation, use without additional grounding, i.e. Such a drill can be plugged into a regular, non-European socket through an adapter. At “iron bazaars” you can find class I (“industrial”) tools with a grounding terminal on a metal case. It is dangerous to use it in everyday life, and its chuck is most often used for a drill with a conical shank (Morse taper), unsuitable for rotary impact drilling. Therefore, do not buy such a drill, even if it is powerful and inexpensive.

Class I is indicated on the nameplate of the drill, and if there is no designation, the body is partially or completely plastic, and the cord with a Euro plug is a class II tool. III class – power tools operating voltage up to 42 V (low voltage) can be recognized by the class designation on the nameplate and by a special plug with flat, cross-positioned contacts. It is suitable for home use, but inconvenient: you need a powerful step-down transformer.

For protection against foreign objects and moisture, power tools and equipment are marked with the letters IP (Ingress Protection) with two numbers after them: the first - from foreign objects, the second - from moisture. If the protection for any position is zero, the letter X is placed instead of the corresponding number. Thus, an IP32 drill can be used outdoors in good weather; IPХ2 - only inside, IP34 - outside in fog and drizzling rain, and IP68 can work during the Samum in the Sahara and under water.

Important: the first digit 2 means that the device is finger-resistant; for example, a household socket has a degree of protection of IP22. But this in no way means that if you grab a drill chuck with the same degree of protection with your hand while working, it will stop on its own. The IP standard is not foolproof.

Cartridge

The regular three-jaw chuck is accurate and good at rotary drilling. When using a rotary impact drill, it quickly becomes loose, and the chuck itself loses accuracy and may completely fail: the threaded race of the cam mechanism bursts. For work on hard, brittle materials, the three-jaw chuck is suitable for occasional use or with a diamond working body in rotation-only mode.

In a quick-release chuck (you can recognize it by its corrugated plastic collar), the drill is clamped by a collet. Such a chuck holds the drill better during impact-rotary drilling, but is less accurate and is of little use for delicate work. Powerful drills are equipped with a two-sleeve collet chuck– clamping and loosening are carried out by different rings.

The SDS cartridge (Steck-Dreh-Sitzt, German “inserted-turned-sits” or Special Direct System, special direct system, English) was invented by Bosh. SDS is ideal for construction work: the system of shaped grooves, see figure, absolutely securely fixes the working element according to the principle Chinese puzzle; Replacing the drill is done with just two light movements.

Unfortunately, SDS is not suitable for metalworking and carpentry: the centering accuracy of the drill is insufficient. An adapter from a three-jaw chuck to an SDS makes no sense: it will become loose from vibration, just like regular drill. Therefore, the SDS drill is incompatible with the conventional working tool fit.

Note: There are three types of SDS fit: SDS+, SDS Top and SDS Max. SDS Top is rarely used, as an intermediate and generally unsuccessful option; SDS+ is designed for one-handed tools weighing up to 5 kg; SDS Max – for heavy two-handed.

Power and speed

Buying a rotary impact drill for general works, no need to save on power. Power reserve is needed to create the required torque at low speeds. External characteristics a commutator electric motor with sequential excitation used in drills is close to ideal, but the low-power motor at low speeds overheats from the high current. It is also advisable to purchase, if not included, a front slip handle.

The maximum speed of the drill is also important. The diamond tool is literally “eaten up” before our eyes at a rotation speed of less than 1600-1700 rpm; its normal operating speed is from 2500 rpm. Carbide tools require at least 1500 rpm. If you come across a drill at 600-1200 rpm, this is a special tool, unsuitable for general-purpose work.

For precision work on metal, a simple, rotation-only, low-power drill - 120-200 W - is best suited. A stand that turns the drill into a tabletop drilling machine will be very useful. And if you also fork out for Rotary table to the bed, then it will be possible to mill small parts with a dental bur.

Mains or battery?

Cordless drill home handyman needed in two cases:

• If you work on the side, this is your more or less regular extra income.
• If you have a non-electrified cottage or garage.

In any case, an expensive professional drill with lithium battery and its charging time of 10-20 minutes is unlikely to pay for itself. This is an option for professionals who work full shifts day after day. A regular alkaline battery, charged in 4-8 hours, will suit you. In extreme cases, you can “pump it up” to a hole or two in half an hour.

Section summary

All of the above can be reduced to the following recommendations:

• Regular construction works, including metal structures - you need a hammer drill and an impact drill of 350 W or higher.
• Occasional household work – rotary impact drill from 250 W.
• For precision drilling - an additional precision drill for rotary drilling at 120-150 W; preferably with a frame.

Drill

The following types of drill bits are most commonly used:

• Spiral - are made of tool steel, coated with carbide, with a carbide insert and solid carbide. Used for all types of work on any materials.
• Spade drills can be used to drill wood, MDF and plastic. Allows you to drill large diameter holes. They are made either in one piece or in the form of a set of a shank with a groove and several inserts of different diameters. This set is cheaper than a set of solid nibs, but less accurate.
• Crown bits (crowns) are used for excavating holes in hard brittle materials - stone, concrete and drilling wide holes in chipboard and fiberboard. Available with or without a centering twist drill. The latter are cheaper, but are only suitable for stone and require strong working skills.
• A circular drill (centre drill, ballerina drill) is used to drill large-diameter holes in thin, durable but fragile materials with a decorative front surface, such as tiles or polished decorative stone. The drilling diameter of the circular drill can be changed smoothly. Rotary impact drilling with a circular drill is unacceptable.
• Diamond drills are thin-walled tubes made of a special alloy coated with diamond. They can be used to drill glass, polished decorative stone, and glazed ceramic tiles. Roads require careful handling and precise adherence to drilling technology.

Drill sharpening

Drill sharpening

Self-sharpening of drills is acceptable for twist and feather drills. The first ones are sharpened with a diamond file - they are made of tool steel. Cheap sets can be made from regular carbon steel; their feathers can be straightened with a regular file.

Spiral drills are sharpened with an emery wheel (carbide - diamond) using a device - a wedge with an angle of 180 degrees minus half the sharpening angle. So, with a sharpening angle of 120 degrees, the wedge angle is needed at 30 degrees. In the hypotenuse (oblique side) of the wedge, a longitudinal hollow or blind hole is made, in which the drill is smoothly turned when sharpening. The best sharpening is obtained using a fine (“velvet”) hand-held emery wheel, see fig. below.

For different materials need different angles drill sharpening A. Metal is most often drilled with drills with a sharpening angle of 116 degrees, concrete and stone - 90 degrees, wood - 60-90 degrees. The exact angles and sharpening methods for different types of drill bits for different materials can be found in material processing reference manuals.

About hard alloys

Carbide alloys for drills are made based on boron, tungsten or zirconium compounds. The cheapest ones are based on boron, but such a drill will take concrete with great difficulty and will wear out quickly. Such drills are marked “by stone”. You cannot drill decorative materials with them - the edges of the hole will chip. Tungsten and zirconium compounds differ primarily in their durability: zirconium compounds last longer. They cost more accordingly.

What and how to drill

Whenever drilling, the hole locations must be marked. For metal this is done with a center punch, and for glass, ceramics and stone - either with a special diamond center punch, or with half a pobedit roller from an old glass cutter, clamped into a homemade holder. Marking (more precisely, scratching with rotation) hole marks in fragile hard materials must be done manually. Now let's move directly to drilling technology.

Steel, brass, bronze, massive duralumin

Drilling of metal of normal viscosity is carried out at medium drill speeds, 400-1000 rpm depending on the hole diameter: 400 revolutions - with a maximum drill diameter of 13 mm for a conventional drill; 1000 – with a diameter of 3 mm. For smaller diameters, the speed is again reduced to the same 400 rpm for 1 mm.

We mean maximum speed at idle. During the drilling process, the regulator itself will reduce them according to the tool feed, i.e. according to how hard you lean on it. Selecting the feed when manual drilling by weight requires a certain skill: if the feed is too low, crumbs will form, the hole will end up with uneven walls. And from the same crumbs the drill will overheat and quickly become dull.

If the feed is excessive, so-called drain chips will form - thick, curling in a spiral. The result is the same. To develop the feeding skill faster, you need to drill even small holes with both hands, with a cap handle. The chips should be thin and fragile. For steels 42 and 44 (regular structural steels), chips with a bluish tarnish color are acceptable.

Bronze and some types of duralumin require special attention: they do not produce flush chips at all, and duralumin sharply loses strength when heated above 160 degrees. It is permissible to monitor bronze by its tarnish: its appearance is undesirable. The duralumin needs to be cooled with liquid machine oil: if it boils, you need to press it lightly.

You can set the idle speed by clicking the regulator. If the drill is at 2800 rpm, and the regulator gives 14 clicks from edge to edge, then 1 click is 200 rpm. The adjusting characteristic of the regulator is not always linear, so you need to carefully monitor the drilling process and then make the necessary correction: know at what clicks of this particular tool you need to drill a given material.

Note: When drilling steel and brass, lubrication is not needed, it will only prevent the formation of correct chips.

Sheet metal

For the same materials, but sheet materials, so that drilling does not lead to bending of the sheet, two methods can be recommended:

• When drilling from the bed, give more revolutions, up to 1500-2000, and quickly “pierce” the sheet, which should lie on a wooden pad. To prevent the sheet from turning and injuring you, it must be secured with nails driven into the cushion at its edges, or pressed to the table with a clamp; better - two.
• When drilling by weight, as soon as you feel increased resistance to feed (this means that the drill is about to come out), you need to drill a hole on the other side, pressing the “pimples” inside with a center punch.

But a radical way to get a wide hole in a thin sheet of metal with a regular drill is to first drill a hole with a diameter equal to the thickness of the sheet, then in one or three steps expand it to the diameter of the required hole minus double the thickness of the metal, and drill cleanly. Each subsequent hole should be wider than the previous one by twice the thickness of the metal. The maximum permissible diameter is 5-6 metal thicknesses. That is, in a 2 mm sheet you can drill a hole with a diameter of 13 mm, and it will be round, and not like a triangle with heavily smoothed corners.

Aluminum is a soft metal, very viscous and fusible: its melting point is only 660 degrees. Because of this, when drilling, it may melt on the cutting edge, the hole will spread out, its edges will bulge and the drill will bite. Therefore, when drilling aluminum, the speed should be one and a half times less than for other metals, cool the drill with liquid machine oil, emulsion or water, and feed the tool little by little, without interference.

The drill bit for aluminum must be sharp, factory sharpened or sharpened on a special machine. Hand-sharpened drills are not suitable for aluminum.

Stainless steel

Stainless steel is drilled in the same way as structural steel, but with a solid carbide drill bit sharpened for metal. Such drills are very fragile, so the tool must be fed easily and without the slightest distortion. It is best to drill with a low-power precision drill in a stand.

Wood, MDF and plastic

Industrial wood is drilled with a twist drill or a feather drill, sharpened to look like wood. Dense woods (oak, beech, walnut) can be drilled with a core bit and a centering drill. Drill revolutions are 400-600 for a twist drill and 200-500 for feathers and crowns.

Drilling plastic windows, MDF, plastic tiles and polished wood are produced either with a special wood drill (with shaped sharpening and a centering threaded cone), or with solid feather drills. In the latter case, a centering hole of 3-5 mm is drilled in advance; it can be drilled with a regular drill. Turnovers are the same as for industrial wood; The feed is easy, without pressure.

Concrete and reinforced concrete

Drilling of concrete is carried out using special drills for concrete with a super-hard solder or liner, using a rotary impact method at medium or 2/3 of the maximum speed of the drill. Best option– SDS drill. If reinforced concrete is drilled, then the drill hitting the reinforcement most often leads to its damage: the hard tip gets chipped. Therefore, before drilling reinforced concrete, it is highly advisable to determine the location of the reinforcement using a reinforcement detector; This device works on the principle of a metal detector.

Drilling holes in the walls for socket boxes is done with a stone crown (for brick walls) or concrete, with the same precautions in the case of reinforced concrete. If the hole is drilled with a crown without a centering drill, then it is applied tightly, without distortion, to the wall, pressed, and with sharp, quick pressure, turn on the drill.

There is a special tool and technology for through-drilling walls, but this is the subject of a separate description.

Ceramics and stone

How to drill tiles is, without exaggeration, a whole science. The material is decorative; chipping of the edges of the hole is unacceptable. They drill into already laid tiles, so cracking is also unacceptable. By smooth surface the drill can easily slip off, which is again unacceptable. Drilling - only by rotation.

Drilling ceramic tiles is done as follows:

• A hole with a diameter larger than the thickness of the centering drill web is punched manually with a diamond or carbide center punch; its diameter is 2.5-3 mm. When drilling a large diameter hole, the diameter of the centering drill should be equal to the diameter of the centering rod of the compass drill.
• A centering hole is drilled using a concrete drill. When drilling holes for dowels up to 6 mm, you can immediately drill clean.
• Using a concrete finishing drill, the hole is finally drilled.

Porcelain tiles are drilled in the same way as ceramic tiles. Drill speed is maximum, except for drilling with a circular drill; serving – light, minimal. It is advisable to provide continuous cooling working area water. You cannot cool the tiles with oil - when heated, it can ruin the decorative surface.

Drilling ceramics with a circular drill requires special care and steady hands: misalignment is unacceptable and the drill is not balanced. Even experienced workers need to drill with a cetrobor with both hands, placing the front handle on the drill. The revolutions are higher, but not more than 900, because with large ones, an unbalanced drill will break the hole and chip off its edges.

Video: how to drill tiles

Solid stone and glass

Glass, granite and other brecciated (grainy) hard stone with quartz inclusions should be drilled with a diamond drill bit. This is a job for an ace and virtuoso of drilling. A low-power precision drill is set to maximum speed, tried on, aligned horizontally and vertically by eye, immediately turned on “full” and slowly, smoothly inserted the drill into the material. Pressure and distortion are unacceptable.

If the piece being processed can be laid on a table, then glass and stone can be drilled from the bed using the ancient Egyptian method: copper tube with quartz (not sea shell) sand:

• A roller 1-1.5 cm high is made from plasticine or putty around the drilling site.
• Fine quartz sand is poured into the formed hole and moistened to a liquid paste.
• A flat, thin-walled copper tube is inserted into the drill chuck.
• The drill is set to MINIMUM speed.
• Drill with a series of short, light pecks with the lightest pressure. Sand eats into copper, and the tips of its grains, which have the greatest strength, gnaw the material.

Note: You won’t get the exact diameter, but you will get a matte spot around the hole.

Video: examples of glass drilling at home

Holes in pipes

If a piece of pipe can be laid in the center or clamped in a vice, then it is better to drill with a precision drill from the bed. If you have to drill by weight, then after punching the mark must be expanded to a diameter exceeding the thickness of the drill bridge. For metal, this can be done with a carbide drill, rotating it with your fingers with light pressure; on PVC - with the tip of a penknife.

Then the tip of the main drill is inserted into the hole with the drill turned off, the tool is leveled and tried on, as when drilling tiles, lightly pressed and turn on the drill, gradually increasing the speed. If the hole diameter is more than 1/5 of the pipe diameter, then first drill a centering hole 2-4 mm in diameter. In general, with some skill, drilling holes in pipes is not a difficult job. You just need to be careful: when drilling in weight, the drill, splashing, can damage the wall or furniture.

Square holes

Is it possible to drill square holes? Yes, you can if you use a drill in the form of the so-called Renault triangle - simplest figure, as mathematicians say, of constant width. Renault drills come complete with a fixing frame; it is attached to the drill with a rod and clamp. The corners of the hole will be rounded, but the unnoticed area of ​​the hole will be only 2%.

However, you can only drill square holes with a drill in wood, plywood and not very durable plastic: such drilling requires a lot of power, and enormous lateral forces arise on the tool. Square holes in metal are drilled on special machines, but ceramics and stone cannot be drilled this way at all: lateral forces will tear the part into pieces.

Bottom line

Somehow piercing a clumsy hole with a drill is a simple matter. But drilling a smooth, round and neat hole is a job for a real master, knowledgeable, intelligent and with skillful hands.

How to drill a hole in a wall

It would seem that nothing could be simpler than drilling holes in the walls. However, if you look at the issue more broadly, it turns out to be multifaceted and very extensive. Firstly, what size should the hole be, secondly, what material is the wall itself made of, thirdly, what tool are you going to use to do this, and so on. Today we will talk to you about the topic, how to drill a hole in a wall. We will share interesting information, which can be useful both during repairs and just in everyday life.

Wear protective clothing

1. Carrying out any installation work, especially with power tools, always wear at least gloves.
2. To avoid breathing the dust thrown into the air, you should wear at least a simple medical mask for 2 rubles. A hat will also help, especially if you are drilling at height and debris may fall on your head.
3. While drilling, the tool must be held firmly and level. There are times when the drill jams in the hole, and the hammer drill can be torn out of your hands, which can lead to injury. The drill should only enter the wall perpendicular to it (unless special devices are used); any distortions can lead to part of the wall crumbling.
4. It is very convenient when a rotary hammer or drill has an additional handle - this makes it easier and more reliable to hold the tool.

The master holds the hammer drill tightly with both hands

Prices for popular hammer drill models

Hammers

The operating mode for the tool is selected depending on the type of surface you are dealing with. The size of drills or crowns is selected according to the size of the anchors and other equipment that will be installed in the hole.

The basic principle used when drilling is the material you use to do it, must be stronger than the wall material, that is, you cannot drill through concrete with a wood drill that does not have any additional coating, which is why it is so important to choose the right tool.

Find out, and also read step-by-step instructions and photos, in a special article on our portal.

Concrete drilling – simple and professional

Professional machine for drilling large holes in thick walls

So, we may need holes in the walls for different purposes; accordingly, its diameter and depth will depend on this. The photo above shows how a special water-cooled installation bites into the thickness of concrete with a powerful crown - such large holes are needed for the installation of communication lines, ventilation, sewerage and other things. The need for tools that can cope with such a task is Lately has increased many times over, since now almost everything is built using monolith technology. For brick walls, this is also sometimes required, for example, the builders did not provide an exhaust hood, or a neat outlet from the boiler needs to be made.

Through drilling of a brick wall

This approach allows you to cope with the task in the shortest possible time, plus the strength of the wall is not compromised. Only a few can afford such equipment, and there is no point in buying it. Only specialized organizations are engaged in professional drilling. We will not describe the process of diamond drilling in detail, but we will go through the main points to broaden our general horizons.

Table 1. Instructions for drilling concrete.

Interesting to know! Cutting tool needs to be constantly refrigerated. If the hole is large and the wall is thick, organize the water supply through special hoses. This measure allows for less dust.

Now from professional tools let's move on to the more mundane ones, to those that we constantly encounter in practice. Concrete – very hard material. In addition, reinforcing rods made of steel or fiberglass can pass inside it. A tool with a shock function can cope with its drilling - the impulse from the drill will destroy the material more effectively. Use simple electric drill not worth it. No, you will make a hole, but you will spend about 10 minutes on it, not 10 seconds. Agree, the difference is colossal.

Interesting to know! If the hole diameter is less than or equal to 13 mm, then an impact drill will be enough for the job. Large ones can only be made with a hammer drill.

A screwdriver can only handle lightweight concrete, and even then not everyone

Prices for popular models of screwdrivers

Screwdrivers

Concrete walls also include lightweight concrete - foam blocks, gas blocks. These materials are not very dense, so even a screwdriver may be enough for the job if it has a fast and powerful electric motor.

Video – Diamond drilling of holes in concrete and reinforced concrete walls HD 1080

Next important point– this is the selection of a drill. Concrete and other hard materials such as brick can only be drilled with carbide tools – Pobedit drills. A very durable one will win; a drill tip is made from it, after grinding it down, the device becomes unusable.

Pobedite drill tip

Advice! If you try to use these drill bits on wood, you will end up with unsightly jagged holes. Wood is too soft for him.

Prices for diamond drilling rig

Diamond Drilling Rig

Having prepared everything you need, you can start working:

Step 1. First we need to do some preparation. The main problem may be the presence at the drilling site electrical wiring or water and heating pipes. To avoid an accident, you need to make sure you don't get caught in them. A metal detector or a special device that responds only to wiring can help in this matter. Pipes inside the walls, if they are made of polypropylene and other polymers, will be found by a metal detector only if they have metal reinforcement. Otherwise, you need to look at drawings or photographs of communication lines.

Metal detector for walls

Step 2. Before drilling, you need to mark the entry point of the drill; for this you can use a pencil, marker or punch, if you need not only marking, but also a hole so that the drill does not slip. Usually, when you start drilling concrete or brick, the drill doesn’t go too far to the side, but it can still lead and the hole moves a little. In some situations this is uncritical, but in others, on the contrary, it is unacceptable, for example, you need to screw a bracket that has a strict arrangement of holes for anchors.

Center punches of different sizes

If the wall surface is decorated with ceramic tiles, then it is even more difficult to start drilling without a center punch, especially if the tile is glossy - the drill will slip over it even more, leaving scratches. If you don’t have such a device at hand, you can replace it classic dowel, which will not bend from hammer blows, or start drilling at the lowest speeds, and only after making sure that the drill goes as it should, accelerate the tool.

Step 3. Small holes are used mainly for plastic dowels and metal anchors - in the first case, it is recommended to make the hole slightly deeper than the length of the element, literally 3-5 mm. If this is not provided for, it may not go all the way, will remain protruding above the plane of the wall, or will break completely. This feature is typical of dowels due to their shape.

This is what the depth limiter looks like

Step 4. There are very thick walls, and the depth of the hole will not play a special role for them, especially if the dowel has a limiter cap that will prevent it from slipping inside. And there are thin partitions, where overdoing can lead to damage to the finish on the other side, plaster falling off, and so on. In this case it is necessary accurately determine the drill depth. For this purpose, limiters in the form of rods are used, fixed in special device on the additional handle of the hammer drill. Reliable and accurate, but not always.

There are some instrument models in which the fixation of the limiting rod is poorly thought out. It can slip through the hole, making its use risky and inconvenient. In this case, you can use the traditional method of indicating the drilling depth.

Homemade limiter made from electrical tape

Take a piece of electrical tape and wrap it at the desired level directly onto the drill. If you need to make many identical holes, then make sure that the edges of such a mark are not pressed down, since after several entries of the drill into the concrete, it can give an error. You can also make a mark on the drill with a marker, but it won’t last very long, as it will quickly be erased and become unnoticeable, especially in the debris that comes out of the hole.

Step 5. When drilling concrete, a lot of drilling waste, or simply dust, is released. When you work in a house that is just under construction, this does not create any interference, but if the premises are already residential, everything is equipped with furniture, and you don’t want to dirty anything, it becomes more difficult to drill a hole in the wall accurately. But we wouldn’t be us if we hadn’t come up with ways to deal with such a trivial problem:

• The photo below shows a hammer drill equipped with a vacuum cleaner and a dust bag. Working with such a tool is a pleasure - with good suction power, virtually no debris will enter the room. It is especially convenient to use it at heights.

Rotary hammer with vacuum cleaner

• Such equipment costs a lot of money, so less radical measures can be used. For example, use a home vacuum cleaner. You don't need to tape it to the hammer drill - just have someone hold the tube under the hole while you drill it. The effect will be no worse.
• In some situations, dust collectors, which come in the form of plastic or rubber bowls, help. It is convenient to work with these devices when drilling the ceiling, but they are not so well suited for walls, since when removing the drill, debris can spill out.

Tool with dust collector

• The simplest method is to use a damp cloth. While you drill, an assistant holds it from below and then carefully removes it. The remaining particles of debris on the wall are wiped off with a clean rag.
• If there is absolutely no one to help you, then you can make such a garbage container envelope, as shown in the photo below. To do this, you will need an old newspaper and masking tape, which, when peeled off, will not leave marks on the wall. It is glued just below the drilling point, and all waste will fall inside.

Garbage bin made from old newspaper

If all the dusty work has been completed and you need to prepare the wall for painting, it will be very useful for the reader. IN this material Let's look in detail at the main types of putties and the tools that will be needed during the work process. And step-by-step instruction applying putty to the wall.

How to drill ceramic tiles and porcelain tiles correctly

Perfectly straight hole in ceramic tiles

If you have ceramic tiles glued to the wall, then the process of drilling it will become somewhat more complicated and will consist of two stages. Let's describe them in order.

First, you will need to prepare all the tools: masking tape, a pencil, a marker, a diamond bit, a pen drill, as shown in the photo above, and an electric drill. Ceramic tiles are a very durable material, but at the same time she is fragile. If she gets hit, she splits into pieces, so Drilling it with impact is prohibited. However, it is very easy to drill even without this function - just high speeds and a special drill.

Table 2. Instructions for drilling ceramic tiles.

How bigger hole, the more difficult it is to drill

When it is necessary to make holes for sockets in tiles, and even in concrete itself, diamond-coated crowns are used. They do a good job, but there is one important rule that must always be followed, namely - cool the cutting edge in time. If you allow the tool to overheat, it can burn out and lose all its properties, so it is worth stopping work at some intervals and immersing it in a container with cold water.

Cooling the drill while drilling tiles

You can also supply water directly to the drilling site - for this you need a special water pump or an assistant who will add it as needed.

Often the right tool not at hand. In such situations, alternative devices or original folk methods can help out.

• If you don't have center punch, which is simply desperately needed when drilling porcelain stoneware, for example, it can be replaced with guide pads like those in the photo. You can buy them in a store, or make them yourself from a piece of plywood or similar material. You can simply hold such an overlay with your hand so that the crown cannot move anywhere. As soon as we pass the first millimeters, it can be removed to the side.

Guide plate for crown

Homemade plywood analogue

• There are situations when you need to drill through tiles at an angle of 45 degrees. How is it even possible to do this without damaging the surface? Special guides are sold for this purpose. The principle of its operation is this: first done perpendicular hole in the usual way, then the stop is immersed in it, after which the drill is transferred to an inclined guide. Naturally, different guides are used for drills of different diameters.

A set for drilling porcelain tiles with crowns will be needed for smaller holes

• What to do if you need to drill a hole for an socket, but you have nothing at hand except a drill. It's okay, they can do the job too. To do this on the wall you need make precise markings of the hole contours. After this you need the entire circumference drill with a minimum step, as shown in the photo below. Next, the inner part is knocked out using a spatula with a hammer drill or a chisel and a hammer.

Drilling large diameter holes without a crown

• If while drilling you come across metal, then you won’t be able to take it with a concrete drill. Here you need to act differently - either move the hole a little to the side, or overcome the obstacle with the necessary drill, cut it down with an engraver, grinder, and so on.

Annoying nuisance

• Look at the photo below and appreciate the method that the master came up with. He simply assembled a corner from a Lego constructor, placed it in the right place, pressed it down and did all the work exactly. Let's develop the idea - to prevent such a device from slipping on glossy ceramics, you can stuff plasticine or mastic inside, for example.

The resourcefulness of people knows no bounds

• From homemade products again to professional equipment. It is very convenient to use the suction cup guides. They are securely fixed to ceramics, but only with a flat surface, so this device cannot be called universal. The photo shows a model with indent adjustment.

Professional drilling kit

Find out with your own hands in a special article on our portal.

Video - Door travel limiter or how to drill a wall without dust

Today we talked about drilling solid walls, but they can also be made of wood, or plasterboard and other materials. Unfortunately, there is no time for these topics now, but the principle of operation will be similar. At the same time, drilling such bases is much easier; it is enough to use a tool for cutting wood.