Thick Wall - Drilling

[Tomel]

Hello all,

Your advice please: I need to create a number of holes for cables through some pretty substantial bits of building as follows:

1) ~1m horizontally through solid stone
2) ~1m horizontally through brick (possible loose infill)
3) ~1m vertically though a brick arch

Each location will need a hole of ~50mm to allow the cables to pass. An acceptable alternative would be 4 x 25mm hole.

Now, past experience in this building tells me that I can make a 25mm hole easily enough with a solid SDS bit and a little bit of patience.

Should I be even considering using a core drill? My fear is that towards the end of the hole at ~1m deep it'll be near impossible to break out the core.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[SimonH2]

At my last job I observed the AC installers with a very long TCT drill of around 2" diameter. I seem to recall it didn't take long to get through a couple of block walls.

 

[Norcon]

I'd use sds max.
You can get their spiral bits up too 32mm diameter x 1200mm (working depth) long.

If it needed the 50mm I'd fab up an extension bar to fit a 50mm tungsten core cutter and finish with that.

Thats ok for through brick of course.
I've never seen stone walls drilled with tungsten, diamond or otherwise.
Usually a crowbar job or breaker with a finished hole big enough you can crawl through.
So its your call.