Drilling Bathroom tiles - advice

Columbo

Columbo

Columbo

Soldato
Joined
26 Mar 2007
Posts
9,169
Location
Nottinghamshire
Ok so I've done most things DIY over my life but have never drilled through tiles.
Having just had my bathroom fitted the wife now wants a couple of cabinets sticking on the walls but I've never drilled tiles before and am paranoid about trashing them given their newness.

Whats the best way to go about it?
In terms of tools I've got just about everything needed to do any job

Example below of roughly the position I need to put a cabinet.
2TafXSd.jpg
 
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Buy a tile bit, or more. Depending on the weight

Tape the area first with a decent tape, something like duck and mark that for the drill holes. The tape means its easier to start off as it helps avoid the skipping.

Drill very slowly to start and be careful to get the bit to not skid about. Once you have a small hole your fine its just getting started thats hard due to the hard surface and often its shiny.
 
With a tile bit, place it in the drill, without rotating the bit gently push it in to the tile and you will hear a tiny pop as the point of the bit digs in to the ceramic surface. At that time you can start to gently rotate the bit without it skipping. Just go slowly and it will go through very fast. Once you are through the tile you can use an ordinary masonry drill to give you depth in the wall. The reason for this is you might want to use a hammer setting for the wall and that's something you should never do with your average tile drill.
 
I recently drilled a hole through thick tile to fit a door stop. The tips already given are good advice. It was thick tile and took quite a bit of time to get through. The bit got very hot so had to periodically stop to cool it down. Just don't rush it and you'll be fine.
 
Don't skimp on the drill bit - Get a proper diamond tipped bit. Can take a while to get through the tile. Don't over push/pressure it. Let the "bit" do the work.
 
I’ve always just scored a point with a centre punch to stop the bit from slipping then used regular masonry bits, small one first then the correct size after, never had any problems. I echo what others say and don’t put too much pressure, just let the bit do all the work with minimal pressure.

Obviously I hope it goes without saying but don’t use your drill on hammer mode!
 
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First thing to do is if you have a scrap tile try it on there.


After that just follow the above.
 
Columbo said:
Cheers all, some great advice.
Looking through my drill bits I think I've got some tile ceramic bits already that I've clearly never used.

LDjFPxL.jpg
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Make sure you get a good deep centre punch on the tile before using them or they will slip.......

Don't really!!!!
 
dLockers said:
I redact my "sarky" comment :D :cry:
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Well, I think we can almost deduce that the OP has been given lots of DIY present over they years to encourage them to do more DIY!

Although maybe they frequent the middle isles of supermarket and go with the "you never know when you migth need this" attitude!
 
Forget all that diamond, shiny and makes your bits look bigger bits and do it like we've all been doing for years as above.
 
Great thread as I need to do same and was just about to make a thread.

Unfortunately I'm still at stage in life where each new job needs a trip to screwfix to get yet more hardware!
 
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