How To Drill Into Concrete?

victory

In the living room there is a floor to near ceiling double glazed window, inside it it has vertical blinds, I wanted to put up a curtain rail and a curtain on the top the outside, but it is concrete and so far OH has broken 2 drill bits trying to drill a hole to put the pole up so how do we do it? OH says it is impossible and even if we do manage to do it that it will not hold the weight of a fully lined heavy curtain?

CarolnMalky

In our house the majority of our walls are concrete, hubby uses a hammer drill and masonary drill bits they tend to work a treat. If the proper tools are used you will be able to put curtains up no problems, we have a 42" plasma wall mounted and its fine.

lagi

It sounds like you are trying to drill into the lintel. This you will find very hard to do and also you will be compromising its integrity. Most people tend to fit a piece of wood which can be painted/stained to match your interior across the lintel. You need to see how long the lintel is by trying to drill either side of it (you may be able to tap it with hammer to see if it makes a different sound). Then cut your wood slightly longer than lintel, fix securely either side and use something like a no nails adhesive in the middle. When this has fully cured, fix your new curtain rail to this.

Hope this makes sense.

wallbash

Good post from lagi
Drilling . even with a very good hammer drill and new drill bit is tough if not impossible, in some lintels.

Will now get someone mentioning sds . expensive option just to put up a curtain.

CarolnMalky

Hubby has now advised me...you can buy all purpose drill bits from Bosch will will drill masonary without a hammer drill, you may get them from BnQ though Screwfix sell sets of them for about a tenner!

victory

wallbash wrote: »

Good post from lagi
Drilling . even with a very good hammer drill and new drill bit is tough if not impossible, in some lintels.

Will now get someone mentioning sds . expensive option just to put up a curtain.

what is sds?

sparky883

SDS is no different to a hammer drill for what you are doing,As long as you are not trying to get through the lintel,You need a good powerful mains operated hammer drill and a decent drillbit and push hard!! Like having a baby

wallbash

Like having a baby

:eek:

Hubby has now advised me...you can buy all purpose drill bits from Bosch will will drill masonary without a hammer drill, you may get them from BnQ though Screwfix sell sets of them for about a tenner!

Yes But :rotfl: I don't think its the concrete walls which are the problem
Its The concrete lintel . The concrete used in 'some' lintels are many / many times harder than normal concrete walls.

victory

it is true it is the concrete lintel that seems to be impenetrable

27col

Many years ago a chap who was building a house next to me had this concrete lintel problem. He solved it by nailing the wooden batten to the wall using a Hilti Gun. You only need to hire it for an hour or so and the job's done. A Hilti Gun is a machine that uses small cartridges to fire hardened nails into the wall, to fix the wooden batten to the lintel.
For myself , I would use my SDS drill to drill the lintel and use wall plugs to fix the batten. I think that the main difference between a hammer drill and an SDS drill is that, in the SDS drill, the hammer action is pneumatically driven and in a hammer drill, it is just operated by a cam mechanism. If this is not the case, I would be glad to be corrected by some one who knows different. I once drilled 144 x 1"diam holes across a concrete floor with a SDS drill and it was a complete doddle. I would not be without mine.

wallbash

For myself , I would use my SDS drill to drill the lintel

Has the OP got a SDS ????
Should they rush out and buy one , to hang a curtain

Sledge /Hammer/ Nut :rotfl:


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