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making holes through walls |
To make a hole through a wall is not normally difficult as long as you follow certain precautions and have the necessary tools. It is vitally important to ensure that no service cables, water or gas pipes are buried in the wall before drilling.
A good cable/metal detector should be used to ensure that there is nothing buried in the wall which could give you a nasty surprise.
This is a model suitable for DIY use as it will detect both live cables and metal pipes, it will not however detect plastic pipes! More expensive models can actually tell you how deep the pipe is buried in the wall.
For making small holes (up to about 25mm) through walls a good SDS drill and long masonry drill bit will be adequate-
SDS drill bits are available in lengths of up to 1 metre so even if you live in a old cottage with 3 feet thick walls you can still drill through the wall. When drilling large holes always use a small diameter drill first to reduce the amount of stress placed on the machine.
For larger diameter holes you will need a core cutter, either diamond tipped or tungsten carbide tipped, the diamond ones are far superior! Diamond core cutters can be used to make large holes like 4 1/2 inch holes suitable to pass a 4 inch soil pipe through. These considerably save time when making good as there is no damage to the surrounding bricks with a core cutter. DO NOT USE HAMMER ACTION WITH CORE CUTTERS!
Core cutters are now far more affordable than they used to be and a kit comprising of 3 core drills, 2 arbors and a case can be picked up for less then £100.00
Special high powered drills are available for use with core drills which incorporate a safety clutch which eliminates harm to the user caused by the core drill snagging, but these drills are very expensive. A good quality high wattage drill will suffice but care must be taken as if it jams it will do so violently and very fast!
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Here I am going to cut a hole through a wall for a
portable air conditioning machine. You must check that there are no
cables etc. in the path of the core cutter or drill!
These machines can be dangerous and can jam at any point, care must be taken as a broken wrist or worse could easily result if the core cutter jams! Start by drilling a pilot drill into the masonry, the core cutter incorporates a drill to enable it to start and to stop it wandering, once the core drill has cut into the masonry you can stop the drill and remove the drill from the centre of the core |
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After you have gone through the first course of bricks stop the machine and remove the core. |
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Now continue with the second course of bricks, be very aware that the cutter can jam at any time, a machine with a safety clutch is preferred as it can prevent injuries to the user! |
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A vent was then fitted to conceal the hole, the pipe from the air conditioning unit is behind the vent. |
| Brickwork |
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