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how to drill through 24 inch stone wall

mbunimog

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Need to drill through rock foundation wall for wiring for mini split ac. What drill bit to use? I think 1 inch or even 3/4 inch bit will be ok but the wall is 24 inch thick. I have Bosch corded hammer drill. It is not a spine drive but regular chuck. Do I need to get a spline drive hammer drill?
 
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dogdog

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sds max drill, HF one is reported to be good, it’s cheaper good for home use I guess. People also like Bosch brand. I have the hitachi heavy duty one.

Water for coolant and lube

Drill bit with 4 cutter. I like Hitachi Bosch Dewalt brand bits but if you feel like to splurge hilti and Milwaukee ones are also good.
 

mepstein

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I had a regular hammer drill and tried to drill my concrete floor for a lift. No go, even with a good bit. Purchased a Bosch sds drill and a good bit, went through the concrete like butter. If you don’t buy one, rent one. It’s worth every penny.
 
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mbunimog

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I had a regular hammer drill and tried to drill my concrete floor for a lift. No go, even with a good bit. Purchased a Bosch sds drill and a good bit, went through the concrete like butter. If you don’t buy one, rent one. It’s worth every penny.
I am getting the picture that SDS drill is the way to go and then get a 36 inch 3/4 inch drill bit is what I am thinking now. Yes the stone wall all of 24 inches will have to be drilled in order to pass through the wires for the mini split hook up
 

mepstein

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Just like another poster mentioned, if I had used the Bosch drill first, I would have thought my concrete was defective. It went through that easily. 20 minutes with my Dewalt only got me an inch.
 

4xdog

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My brother and I put a penetration through the approximately 18" limestone masonry foundation on my house. SDS rented from HD. Easy-peasy. Really quite impressive how well it made that hole.
 

dogdog

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I am getting the picture that SDS drill is the way to go and then get a 36 inch 3/4 inch drill bit is what I am thinking now. Yes the stone wall all of 24 inches will have to be drilled in order to pass through the wires for the mini split hook up
Sds Max not sds plus for that thick of a wall. Both will work eventually, one is just easier.
 

mike93lx

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Great opportunity to buy one if you don't want to rent. I have a Bosch bulldog (same form factor as a Sawzall) and it's done a lot of work for me. If I was buying again, I would get one of the larger sds max units, mostly for the better demolition power and shorter body
 

mepstein

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I purchased mine but if this is a one time thing, I would just rent a really big one and call it done. Nobody ever complains about a job being too easy.
 

shawhite

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Rotary hammer drill will make light work of this. Sds is just the bit retention so either SDS+or max will work. After you rent the tool and buy the bit you could probably just hire this job out. You will want to drill from both sides as to not blow out the back side also water helps keep the dust down. I also agree with sleeving the hole.
 
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Firebrick43

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Sds Max not sds plus for that thick of a wall. Both will work eventually, one is just easier.
Length of the hole has no bearing on the size of the rotary hammer. Its the diameter that matters. My Bosch bull dog does just fine with 3/4" and 1" holes that deep. 1.25 is slow, and get into 1.5" or bigger and its no go. Pull out the RH1255 it will blast through it then but it will not go significantly faster in small holes and is liable to have some blow out on the far side. Plus its really heavy and ***** to handle.
 

larry4406

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I like drilling from the outside where the penetration is seen and the device location is properly visually positioned.

I pick a mortar joint then drill upwards at about a 5-10 degree angle.

This lets any water in the masonry (which is not impervious) drain out vs in.

On larger holes, I’ve done it first with a smaller bit then followed with a larger bit. This helps reduce the blowout on the exit side (interior) as well as better control on the pitch of the hole.

I like sleaving with pvc. The grey electric conduit coordinates very well with stone.

No doubt you want a real SDS type hammer drill.
 

dogdog

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Length of the hole has no bearing on the size of the rotary hammer. Its the diameter that matters. My Bosch bull dog does just fine with 3/4" and 1" holes that deep. 1.25 is slow, and get into 1.5" or bigger and its no go. Pull out the RH1255 it will blast through it then but it will not go significantly faster in small holes and is liable to have some blow out on the far side. Plus its really heavy and ***** to handle.

Density of material along with length of cut. 1” is kind of max for sds plus. Would sds plus work, sure it would. I have drilled 1” holes with regular hammer drill.
 

f121

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You definitely want a sds, throw away that hammer drill, they’re useless. I wouldn’t buy a sds max, just hire one for this job and buy a 18v sds plus for normal drilling. Buy decent sds bits, Bosch, dewalt etc are way better and stay sharp longer than the cheap junk.

Drill slowly so you don’t explode the stone.
 

Firebrick43

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Density of material along with length of cut. 1” is kind of max for sds plus. Would sds plus work, sure it would. I have drilled 1” holes with regular hammer drill.
and he is drilling 3/4" holes.

I have drilled 3/8 with a hammer drill and it takes forever, how many days would it take to do 1" by 24"
 

larry4406

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The line set is hole sawed through a brick wall upstairs
🤦‍♂️

So the hvac contractor drilled thru the band board at 7-8’ above grade cause it was easier for him and now you see his abortion of line set snaking down foundation to the outdoor units?!

Plumber probably did same with sump pump discharge.

Sounds like hacks. Sorry. 😔
 

timgunn1962

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You need an SDS drill and a suitable bit.

Rent or buy is the choice and you'll want to look at the costs. One hole, probably no more than an inch in diameter, through 24" of almost any rock should be no problem at all for any SDS drill, even a real cheapie. Look at the real cost of renting, including your time for collection and return and try to decide whether there is a real value to owning an SDS drill after the job is done.

Things to be aware of with SDS drills:

Speed is usually variable, but impact energy is not, at least to anything like the degree that speed is.

It's difficult to explain the difference between a hammer drill and an SDS drill to anyone who has not used an SDS before.

I once did a job where we needed to cut a 3" hole for a pipe through a precast reinforced concrete garage using a Carbide-tipped core drill, then drill holes for the pipe fixings. The core-drilled hole took 5 hours with a hammer drill, over an 8-hour working day, with 3 of us taking turns in between having to stop and let the drill cool down. The 6mm (1/4") holes for the fixings were taking close to ten minutes each until the drill threw a commutator bar. I went off to buy a new drill from the nearest DIY store and bought a small SDS, along with some bits. The next day, we drilled the fixing holes. My colleague timed me drilling them at 11 seconds each: a good 50 times faster than the hammer drill.

Back in the mists of time, drilling rock/brick/masonry/concrete/etc was done with a star drill: a chisel with a straight-fluted cross-shaped shaft. This was held in the left hand and struck with a hammer, rotated about 45 degrees and struck again. After doing this several hundred, or several thousand, times, stopping every now and again to clear out the debris, there would be a hole. It might be a 1/4" diameter and 1" deep for a plug (wood or fibre, not plastic: it was a long time ago) for a woodscrew, or 1" diameter and 15' deep for a blasting charge. It was a slow process.

When corded hammer drills became readily available, they turned pretty fast and hit very fast, but not very hard. They tend(ed) to be good for small holes for plugs and screws: certainly quicker and easier than most folk can do with a hammer and star drill.

SDS drills turn slower, hit slower, but hit a lot harder than hammer drills. It's the impact that makes them drill fast. Broadly speaking, the impact energy tends to increase with the weight of the machine and the rotation speed tends to reduce with the weight of the machine. The rotation speed isn't usually important to us, but the impact energy is. Here in Europe, weight is usually given in Kilograms and Impact Energy is usually given in Joules, with the impact energy broadly following a one Joule-per-Kg relationship. A 3 Kg-class machine would provide around 3J of impact energy and have a nominal capacity of around 26mm/1". The nominal capacity is just nominal, in the same way as a 1/2"/13mm rotary drill can usually drill a 5/8" hole without too much trouble, a 3 Kg-class SDS will usually drill a 30mm hole without much difficulty. 30mm diameter is the largest size drill bit readily available in SDS-plus. Above that, it's SDS Max and 5 Kg-class and upwards.

A bigger machine will usually drill faster, but for through holes, there is a risk that it will blow out the back of the wall when it gets close enough to the surface to knock out a conical lump. It's a risk with any machine, but a 2 Kg machine drilling a 10mm hole (3/8") in concrete might knock out a 1" cone, where a 10 KG machine might knock out an 8" cone. In brick, an overly powerful machine will tend to knock the back out of the brick being drilled, but the damage only usually goes as far a the mortar and doesn't affect the next brick. I had a 1.5 Kg machine many years ago, which let the magic smoke out and was replaced by a 3 kG machine. The bigger machine did enough damage to persuade me to buy a cordless SDS, which handles drilling through brick just fine (I live in Lancashire. The local brick is "Accrington Nori", which is about the hardest brick going. It was famously shipped over to the US to build the foundations of the Empire State Building because it is hard enough to support extremely heavy loads). Other bricks can be more, or less, prone to the problem and I'd expect a big variation in stone too.

In the OP's case, I'd recommend a maximum of a 3 Kg class machine (around 3J impact) and ideally I'd probably be looking for a 2 Kg-class machine (around 2J impact and probably rated to drill up to perhaps 22-24mm). The wall looks much too nice to risk making a mess of it, just to save a minute or two of drilling time. Any making good would certainly take a lot longer than the drilling time saved.
 

sparky 1971

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This is easy for me since I already have the tools needed, but I would use a SDS plus with a core bit. Drill a 5/16 pilot hole all the way through and then core from both sides to prevent a huge blowout. That's going to run about $150.00 in bits and an an extension though. You can drill it with a regular SDS bit, but still drill a pilot hole and do it from both sides, unless it doesn't matter what the inside of the wall looks like.

SDS plus is fine. I wouldn't want to hole a SDS max horizontal for the few minutes it's going to take. SDS plus will do it fine, it just might take a minute or so longer.
 

dnschmidt

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This is why I NEVER buy hammer drills. Once you have an SDS hammer the fake hammer drill ******** just pisses you off. I buy non-hammer drills and SDS hammers. I wonder who came up with the hammer drill ******** to begin with. To me they're OK for brick and concrete block for anything else they're a joke.
 

mike93lx

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This is why I NEVER buy hammer drills. Once you have an SDS hammer the fake hammer drill ******** just pisses you off. I buy non-hammer drills and SDS hammers. I wonder who came up with the hammer drill ******** to begin with. To me they're OK for brick and concrete block for anything else they're a joke.
Brick and concrete block are what a lot of masonry drilling is done in...

I use mine regularly. It has to be a big hole or a lot of small ones to get out the sds
 

Milton Shaw

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Daylight and dark difference between hammer drill and SDS drill. Only get the SDS drill if you really want to drill all the way through the wall. I thought anytime you run wire thru masonry you have to use a sleeve to protect the wire. If it's not code you should do it anyway. I have both hammer drill and SDS and since I got the SDS I have not used the hammer function at all on a 1/2 inch Milwaukee drill.
 

ItsNemo

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This is why I NEVER buy hammer drills. Once you have an SDS hammer the fake hammer drill ******** just pisses you off. I buy non-hammer drills and SDS hammers. I wonder who came up with the hammer drill ******** to begin with. To me they're OK for brick and concrete block for anything else they're a joke.

About the only place I find a hammer drill useful is when pre-drilling for small tapcons into brick/mortar/block...my SDS drill is just a bit too much for that, though I will pre-drill tapcons with my sds plus if I'm doing the larger size into concrete slabs/foundations (like anchoring a 2x4 down).

Any serious concrete drilling, like for the anchors for my lift (3/4") or the air lines from my basement (1") to garage or the anchors for my deck (1/2") were SDS all the way. For the couple hundred bucks it cost, I've used it (and lent it out) way more than I ever could imagine.
 

yeldogt

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wonder how it worked out .... I have had to use a core drill for the job
 
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