Concrete is a durable and reliable material. Many, if not most, buildings are constructed from cast-in-place or precast concrete. As a rule, the holes for the gasket engineering communications, pipelines, as well as recesses for installing electrical and low-current fittings are provided during the molding process concrete structures. But their location often does not suit the owner of the premises, and holes have to be drilled at new points. Let's try to figure out how best to do this.
Choosing a tool
Initially, you should determine which tool is better and more efficient for drilling concrete wall. In a global sense, the choice is small - an impact drill or a hammer drill. But there can be many nuances, since power tools can be different power and functionality, there are also many attachments for it. Therefore, you should define goals and objectives, and then decide which tool may be needed. So:
- You don’t need a lot of force to screw a small screw into the wall for a picture. In this case, you can drill into a concrete wall a regular drill, equipped with a drill with a pobedit tip.
- When a small amount of work is expected, and the diameter of the holes to be punched does not exceed 12 mm, then an impact drill should be chosen.
- A hammer drill is used to drill holes of large diameters, as well as any size, in concrete, but in significant quantities.
The advantage of a rotary hammer over a drill, even with an impact function, is not only greater power and endurance. This tool uses not only drills of various sizes and qualities as a working tip, but also drill bits. This is the main device that can be used to drill a hole in concrete for a pipe.
Professional installers punching holes in concrete large diameter, use special units, which include:
- high power electric motor;
- durable bracket with guide structure;
- drilling drive;
- drill bits with a diamond working area.
Such equipment allows you to make a hole or recess with a diameter of up to 40 cm in a concrete wall.
What will win more effectively or a diamond?
When you need to make only a few holes for a construction dowel, and there is no hammer drill at hand, then using a regular drill with a Pobedit drill bit is quite possible. Also this option fits better only if the working surface is concrete, but made of cellular material. The hammer drill will destroy it. But when working with a Pobedit drill, remember that it is short-lived and requires periodic replacement. In addition, such a drill can “drill” into concrete. Then he needs to be helped manually with a punch and a hammer.
Drilling into a concrete wall with an impact drill equipped with a diamond-coated drill bit is much more effective. Diamond drills are somewhat more expensive than Pobedit drills, but they also last longer. And further important point. Unlike Pobedit, a diamond drill punches holes not only in concrete and stone, but also in ceramic tiles, porcelain stoneware and metal. When working with a diamond tool, it is not scary to stumble upon a reinforcement frame in the wall. Buy drills better as a set, which includes drills various diameters. This is more profitable than buying them individually.
When a hole with a diameter of 35 to 120 mm is drilled in a wall, diamond bits are used as a cutting device. They are steel rings with carbide tipped work area, coated with diamond coating. For domestic purposes, crowns with a diameter of 6.8 cm are usually used; holes of this exact diameter are needed for installing electrical sockets and switches.
How to drill concrete correctly
Punching holes, like any other, requires preparation. In addition to tools and accessories, you should stock up on water to cool drills and bits. Before drilling into concrete with a drill or hammer drill, inspect the wall for:
- hidden heating pipelines, water supply;
- electrical wires, cables.
The search is carried out with a metal detector; identified communications are marked along their entire length. It is better to disconnect the electrical wiring on the work surface. Further:
- Mark the locations of future passages. If large diameter holes are expected, then the designation is made along the contour and axes.
- The depth of the hole for the construction dowel is 8-10mm greater than its length.
- To get more exact result, you need to drill concrete correctly. This means that the start of drilling should be done at low engine speeds.
- After a small depression is created, the speed is increased and the tool is switched to impact mode.
- If possible, provide a water supply to the drilling site. If this option is not available, periodically moisten the drill with water in a previously prepared container.
- If drilling with a drill is carried out in one position of the tool, then when drilling with a crown, the hammer drill must be slightly rocked. This way, waste will be easily removed from the resulting hole and the crown will not jam.
The most difficult obstacle that has to be overcome when drilling a concrete wall is the reinforcement cage. The diamond bit cuts steel rods of small diameter independently. When drilling impact drill, metal drills should be used to remove the reinforcement.
Wear safety glasses and a respirator. It is convenient to collect the resulting dust with a vacuum cleaner. Every 15 minutes of drilling, give the tool a break for approximately the same period of time. To continue working, moisten the drill with water.
Those who live in houses with concrete partitions are well aware of the situation when it is necessary to hang an object on the wall. At such a moment, a completely reasonable question arises: how to drill concrete? Every home master who has ever encountered this problem has probably solved it for himself. But how much effort did it take? First, some people try to test the endurance of a drill coupled with on our own. And without receiving the desired result, they leave the intention of making a hole in the concrete until next time. As a result, the instrument has to be repaired, and the shelves continue to gather dust in their corner. However, there are ways, you just need to find out for yourself and use them correctly in an emergency.
Concrete structures are very durable and difficult to drill. Often you have to rest drills against crushed stone, which is integral part concrete.
It is necessary to make holes in concrete when:
- furniture arrangement;
- facing works;
- additional installation of electrical wiring;
- hanging the air conditioner;
- installation of plumbing fixtures.
How to drill concrete? The issue of drilling concrete can be resolved in 2 ways:
- an impact drill or a hammer drill with a special drill called a Pobedit drill;
- diamond drilling.
It is important to note that using standard drills to make a hole in concrete partition does not seem possible. Therefore, for work, you should prepare drills with soldered plates, which are a high-strength pobedite alloy. They will do an excellent job with both brick and concrete. They are not used only for working with soft materials, because the winner will not be cutting them, but only crumbling them.
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What is better to use at home?
At home, when you need to make 2-3 holes on the concrete surface, a simple drill without the “impact” mode is quite suitable. Why, as the drill immerses with the victorious wall material the concrete is tapped with a strong metal pin (punch) corresponding in size to the diameter of the recess.
In particular, a punch is used when the tool begins to “lock” in the wall. Then the steel pin is placed in the recess and struck with a hammer or sledgehammer, trying to crush the overly dense areas and deepen the hole further. At the same time, the rod is turned slightly. After which a regular drill is put back into the process.
The manipulations described above are repeated again and again until the required depth is achieved. This method is not very fast, although it is quite suitable for making a couple of holes.
Another way is in concrete using universal diamond-coated drills. Their work is celebrated high efficiency on metal, concrete and crushed stone. They are attached only to a standard electric drill and other tools without a vibration function.
When working with a drill, extreme caution should be used, otherwise it will instantly fail. The advice from professionals here would be this: to prevent overheating of the drill, it must be periodically moistened with cold water.
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What to do when the amount of work is large?
For drilling large quantity To make holes, you will need a hammer drill or a drill with an “impact” mode, as well as drills with pobedits at the end.
The impact drill combines rotational motion with reciprocating motion, which allows it to be easily controlled lightweight concrete. For drilling load-bearing concrete partitions best assistant a hammer drill will perform, since its main purpose is to punch holes exclusively on concrete surfaces.
There are differences between a drill and a hammer drill:
- The first is to drill holes of small diameter (no more than 12 mm);
- Using a hammer drill, larger recesses are drilled.
Drilling of reinforcement found in the thickness of a concrete wall is performed using metal drills.
When making holes in materials that are characterized by increased strength, which include concrete, brick, etc., drills for metal work are useless: their cutting part quickly becomes dull. In such situations, it is better to use a concrete drill, which is characterized by a number of distinctive properties when compared with those used for drilling metal.
Types and parameters of concrete drills
The peculiarity that distinguishes concrete drills is that their cutting part is equipped with tips made of a special alloy, the hardness of which is very close to the hardness of diamond. Thanks to your unique characteristics such an alloy was called “win.” Pobedit concrete drills are the most durable tool for processing this material.
Among concrete drills, there are two main categories:
- concrete drill bit for a drill, the design of which has a cylindrical or multifaceted configuration;
- a tool for working complete with a hammer drill, having a cylindrical shank, on which the designation SDS-plus or SDS-max is placed.
Home craftsmen often have questions about how to choose equipment and tools for making holes in reinforced concrete structures. To solve this problem, a hammer drill with concrete drills for an impact drill is optimally suited. Drill bits of this type are often called drills and are divided into three main types:
- auger, with which you can drill holes of considerable depth;
- spiral-shaped (they can make holes of large diameter);
- flat, which allows you to obtain holes with small diameters and depths.
Thanks to this design feature, like a thickening on the shank, the drills are installed in the tool chuck by simply clicking into place. Typically, they are chosen by professional builders and execution specialists. installation work to obtain holes whose diameter is in the range of 4–30 mm.
In the event that the question arises about how to drill concrete, obtaining a hole of a larger diameter, choose a crown-type tool. It forms holes with a diameter of up to 12 cm. Core drills for concrete are also divided into several categories:
- diamond drills for concrete in the form of a tube or crown, which are fixed on a solid rod (on working part such a tool is applied diamond sputtering, that’s why it’s called a diamond drill);
- Pobedit drills, which have a similar design to diamond ones, but differ from them in the material used to make the teeth on the cutting part (these teeth are made of Pobedit).
The need for a core drill for concrete arises if it is necessary to prepare seats for electrical sockets and switches, conduct communications and perform other work related to the need to obtain large holes and recesses.
The choice of drill for brick and concrete is also determined by the diameter and depth of the holes being formed. A diamond or pobedit drill can have the following diameter and length ratios:
In the table below you can see a simple pattern: than larger diameter, the longer the length of the concrete drill. This is explained by the fact that a long and thin tool cannot withstand the perceived loads.
There are several rules, following which will allow you to carry out drilling work on concrete as efficiently as possible.
- If you don’t know how to drill a concrete wall with a drill, stock up on different drills, including those designed for metal work. Each type of drill is designed to perform specific work: on brick - to drill brick wall, for concrete - for forming holes in concrete structures, for ceramics - for drilling surfaces finished with ceramic tiles. However, when deepening into the structure of the material being processed, the tool may rest against metal reinforcement, then it must be temporarily replaced with an appropriate drill. Some home craftsmen, when making holes in concrete structures, sharpen the drills they use so that they can also handle metal. However, in order to endow a drill bit with such versatility, it is necessary not only to have the appropriate knowledge, but also to have extensive experience.
- Under no circumstances should the concrete drill be allowed to overheat. It is necessary to take breaks every fifteen seconds and cool the instrument naturally, without using water or any other liquids.
- The structure of concrete necessarily contains hard stones, upon which the drill cannot move further. Such a stone must be crushed with a chipper and only then continue drilling.
- If you need to make a hole in a load-bearing concrete wall or ceiling, it is best to use a hammer drill, which will solve this problem as efficiently as possible.
- To drill a hole in ceramic coating on the wall or floor, you must turn off the impact mode of the drill or hammer drill, otherwise ceramic tile it will simply collapse. When working with such surfaces, it is possible to use concrete drills.
- Inexpensive concrete drills made from a material that is not very hard should be sharpened periodically. For this you can use the corner grinding machine, on which the diamond blade is installed.
The most popular brands of tools for drilling concrete
Drills that are used to perform concrete work on modern market represented by both foreign and domestic brands. Prices for such an instrument often depend on the reputation of the manufacturer who made it.
How to choose a drill for concrete? It should be understood that higher prices for these products are fully justified, given their guaranteed high quality and longer service life.
In the list of foreign companies that offer consumers high-quality concrete drills, the following manufacturers should be highlighted:
- Makita;
- Bosch;
- Metabo;
- stayer;
It should be borne in mind that the high-quality products offered by these companies are quite expensive.
Particularly noteworthy is the tool from Bosch, which is distinguished by its four-spiral design, which allows it to easily remove processing waste from the hole being formed.
Bosch drills of the CYL-9 Multi series are universal and, in addition to concrete, are used for drilling brick and wood
Among concrete drills from domestic producers and companies from the CIS countries and China should highlight products manufactured under the following brands:
- "Interskol";
- "Bison";
- "Enkor";
- Uragan et al.
Medium pobedite drills price category provide sufficiently accurate drilling, but have limited period services
It should be noted that drills made in China can be reliable if they are quite expensive. We must understand well that quality tool cannot be too cheap, because only best materials and innovative technologies.
The low cost of individual copies of such drills can be explained by violations technological process their manufacture, which is allowed by some manufacturers, as well as the use of cheap and low-quality materials. In the modern market, you can also encounter counterfeits, which are quite difficult to distinguish from original products. There is an opinion among experts that fakes have more dark color, since some stages of their production are performed incorrectly. However, when deciding to choose a drill for concrete, pay attention to the cost of such a tool, which should not be too low.
To save on purchases, you can purchase drills in sets, then the price for an individual copy will be slightly lower.
Distinctive features of concrete drills
There are several criteria to distinguish a drill for concrete work from tools for drilling other materials.
Working part shape- Drills for woodworking have the sharpest tip, which initial stage processing is pierced into the material.
- The tip of the tool for working with metal is cone-shaped and does not have a pointed part.
- The fairly blunt tip of concrete drills is made of pobedit plate.
Comments:
How to drill concrete? This question often arises among craftsmen during the construction and renovation of homes with. You have to drill into concrete to install electrical sockets and switches, lay pipes, wires and other communications.
When drilling concrete, a beginner faces a lot of problems, such as breaking the drill, or even the drill.
Concrete is a very durable material. Drilling in the usual ways it gives in very poorly. And if it is reinforced (reinforced concrete), this task becomes almost impossible with a conventional drill. How to drill into concrete? The problem of making holes in this material is becoming increasingly popular.
How to drill concrete?
The main tools for drilling such structures today are a drill equipped with an impact mechanism and a hammer drill. Correctly drill concrete with a hammer drill. It is designed for just such a thing. The holes made by a hammer drill can have enough big sizes both in their depth and in diameter. You can drill a wall using special working tools that have carbide coating or pobedite inserts. The most common ways to use this tool are:
The most powerful tool for drilling concrete structures is a hammer drill.
- using conventional tools with additional use punch;
- use of a hammer drill or impact drill equipped with special tools;
- drilling with diamond tools.
Making a hole in a wall using the usual method is very difficult and takes a lot of time. The tool quickly becomes dull and fails. How to drill a wall correctly? The drilling point must constantly receive rotational and impact forces. The rotational movement is achieved using a drill, and the impact movement is achieved using a punch and hammer. An old drill can be used as a punch. The hammer strikes its end. In this case, the concrete layer is partially destroyed. Destroyed particles are removed using a drill. The hole slowly but deepens. The most common method is to make holes with a hammer drill and a special cutting tool. Work in progress quite quickly and efficiently. A small amount of work can be done with an impact drill with a carbide tool.
Diamond drilling is used for fairly large volumes of work. This method allows you to get the job done very quickly and without a lot of dust. How to get large diameter holes? This is done using diamond-coated crowns or carbide inserts. In some cases, special installations with a water vacuum cleaner are used. But usually a hammer drill can handle this task quite well. It is recommended to periodically remove the drill from the hole and moisten it with water.
Tools inserted into the drill chuck are usually available with a diameter of 4 mm. The largest diameter is 1.2 cm. Their length can be 40 cm. A plastic dowel is inserted into the finished hole and a self-tapping screw is screwed into it. The diameter of the dowel must match the diameter of the hole. To hang cabinets and other pieces of furniture, it is recommended to drill holes and use dowels with a diameter of 8 mm.
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Hammer drills
Drills used in hammer drills are commonly called drills. Drills can have a diameter from 4 mm to 28 mm. Moreover, they have different lengths (diameter and length in millimeters):
- 4 — 50;
- 5 — 100;
- 6 — 150;
- 8 — 250;
- 10 — 540;
- 12 - more than 1000.
The hammer drill has an SDS-plus type shank. Other shanks may be used in industrial installations. Making holes with a diameter of 35 mm or more is carried out with tools that are popularly called crowns. Their maximum diameter is 12 cm. Along the perimeter of the crown there are solderings made of pobedite or diamond coating. Crowns work without turning on the impact mechanism. The hole is drilled in several steps to cutting tool and the engine has cooled down. The drill bits drill well into tiles, so tiled concrete walls can be drilled without changing tools.
You can purchase special drills and bits at numerous tool and construction equipment stores.
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Some tips:
- Before mounting the tool in the chuck of a hammer drill or drill, it is necessary to clean it of dirt.
- The drill shank must fit into the chuck until it stops.
- For household drills and rotary hammers, every 15 minutes of work you need to take a break for 10-15 minutes.
- It is recommended to periodically moisten the drill with water.
- Before making holes in the wall, you need to make sure that there are no pipes or electrical wiring in it.
- You can use a metal detector to find pipes and wires in the wall.
- Work should begin with the impact mechanism turned off and at low speeds.
- The depth of the hole should slightly exceed the length of the dowel that will be inserted into it.
- The depth of the drill can be marked by wrapping a roll of electrical tape around the drill.
- When working, it is recommended to use personal protective equipment.
- It's better to buy drills famous manufacturers. Great choice- Bosch products.
- A diamond tool will help you quickly and efficiently drill many identical holes.
- Drills and drill bits for concrete cannot be used when drilling metal and wood.
Drilling concrete walls is not a very simple task, but it is quite doable even at home.
Holes in concrete are necessary for conducting and installing communications. The work is characterized by an abundance of dust, noise, high labor costs, and requires high-quality power tools. To drill a hole in this material, it should be taken into account that each hole in the load-bearing frame of the building reduces its strength and is fraught with damage to the elements located inside. engineering systems(mainly electrical wiring, ventilation ducts), traumatic.
Through holes with low quality tools cause adjacent sections of walls to crumble at the exit of the drill/bit from their reverse side. Additional finishing is required, the work time increases.
Safety precautions when making holes in concrete
The load-bearing frame of a building made of reinforced concrete is a strong, heterogeneous material. Inside it there is metal reinforcement, gravel or crushed stone of various fractions. Therefore, drilling a hole without observing safety regulations means exposing yourself and surrounding colleagues to the risk of injury. Experts recommend compliance with the following requirements when drilling/drilling reinforced concrete structures:
- use of protective equipment - overalls in combination with goggles/mask, petal respirator, helmet;
- installation of fences: during through drilling, when the worker cannot see the opposite side walls, there may be a risk of pieces collapsing on passers-by or his colleagues;
- the use of reliable scaffolding: without them, work at a height of more than one and a half meters is prohibited, since the operator’s stability is not ensured; when using stepladders, it is necessary to strengthen them with stops.
To drill a hole in concrete, you need to change the speed of the drill, hammer drill, or special diamond machine smoothly, and use only a two-handed tool. The presence of plaster dramatically increases the risk of destruction of internal communications. Therefore, before drilling a hole in load-bearing structure buildings, it is necessary to ensure their absence.
Drilling with a hammer drill in impact mode is allowed only when using a drill or drill as a working tool. If a bit is driven into concrete, rotation without impact is applied. The tool is able to drill a hole and efficiently cut internal reinforcement and stones.
Unlike a conventional drill, which destroys inclusions of crushed stone due to impact, it is not able to drill through reinforcement. To drill monolithic wall, it is necessary to study the location of the seams. It is in them that the internal wiring of power cables, gas and sewer pipes are often hidden.
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Do-it-yourself technologies for making holes in concrete
In the process of construction and finishing of buildings, the need arises to make blind or through holes different diameters. Blind holes are created for fastening, their diameter is limited to 2-16 mm. In this case, an important factor is compliance with the declared diameter. Otherwise, in broken holes, plastic dowels for self-tapping screws and nails will become loose over time, reducing the strength of fixation of wall cabinets, curtains, pipelines, and decorative elements.
To drill blind holes of large diameter or through penetration of reinforced concrete walls to enter communications, crowns are used. They are a cylinder, one side of which is attached with a shank to the chuck of a drill or hammer drill, the second has pobedite or diamond bits welded to it. IN middle part a pobedit drill is installed to give direction to the structure.
Drilling with a drill or drill leads to the destruction of the entire volume of concrete at the point of contact of the tool with the structural material. If there is reinforcement inside the reinforced concrete structure, it is impossible to drill through it; the hole is moved to the side.
Drilling holes in concrete with a crown differs from the previous method:
- concrete is destroyed only around the perimeter of the hole;
- a concrete cylinder remains inside the crown.
Therefore, after reaching the required depth of the blind hole, the inner concrete cylinder remains connected to the wall at the rear end. To remove it from the hole, destructive methods are used: a chisel with a hammer or a hammer drill. Concrete cylinders are removed from through drilling light tools hitting the body with a mallet
Drilling holes in concrete is done with the following tools:
- impact twist drill - more often used for blind holes, the diameter of the carbide inserts of the tip is always larger than the spiral body of the tool, the shank is round, not intended for working in concrete with a hammer drill with SDS chucks;
- spiral drill - instead of a pobedite, a zirconium or tungsten tip (spraying) is used, the shank with grooves is suitable only for SDS chucks (modifications Max, +), dust-free, low-noise drilling is ensured;
- Diamond bit is a large diameter tool exclusively for high-speed rotary drilling.
The marking of a twist drill indicates the caliber, not the diameter. This is the distance between the protruding edges of the solders/liners. Drilling holes with this tool is carried out in the following modes:
- 800-1200 revolutions for diameters within 4 mm;
- 300-500 revolutions for diameters 5-13 mm.
Even the presence of a red marking on the tip of this tool does not guarantee that the tip material matches the metal declared by the manufacturer. Cheap substandard equipment, upon first use, develops into an incomprehensible configuration and becomes unsuitable for work.
Zirconium and tungsten drills are suitable for the following operating modes:
- 60-100 revolutions with a diameter of 42-76 mm;
- 150-400 revolutions for diameters 4-60 mm.
The length of the drill can reach 1 m; a small amount of dust when working with this tool allows you not to remove the furniture from the room. The destroyed concrete “flows” out of the hole in a stream through spiral channels and is collected on the underlying film or paper.
Professionals make blind holes for large diameter socket boxes in a few seconds. Home master Those who do not have regular practice of working with such a tool most often run the risk of damaging the crown at the slightest misalignment. Operating modes when using crowns are 2,000-3,000 revolutions for any diameter. The advantage of the crown is high-quality cutting of reinforcement of any diameter, granite, basalt crushed stone inside concrete with high speeds cutting
- segmented tubular drill - difficult to work with, used by specialists in areas with a high probability of the presence of thick reinforcement;
- core drill with a centralizer - a carbide modification, inside of which there is a drill located in the center, which makes it easier to set the direction, reducing sensitivity to pressure and distortions of the working body; These options are not suitable for cutting reinforcement.
The latest modifications of crowns are operated at 600-1200 rpm; upon contact with reinforcement, the teeth crumble instantly. Therefore, before drilling, the walls are carefully examined special tool for the presence of an armored belt.