drill into brick

Depends what your hanging, depends what method ie plugs or masonry screws.
Depends on the brick and depends on the type of brick.
 
Depends on your drill more than anything, if its not an sds then youre going to have trouble with brick, sometimes i get by on full speed with hammer action on the little cordless but 9 times out of 10 im going for the sds its much quicker and goes in like butter.
If you want to go in the mortar sometimes it chews out a bigger hole, if that happens get some no nails and fill the hole, poke the plug in and leave it to dry
 
finga said:
Depends on your drill more than anything, if its not an sds then youre going to have trouble with brick, sometimes i get by on full speed with hammer action on the little cordless but 9 times out of 10 im going for the sds its much quicker and goes in like butter.
If you want to go in the mortar sometimes it chews out a bigger hole, if that happens get some no nails and fill the hole, poke the plug in and leave it to dry
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Change your choice of drill bit.
The Bosch Multi-construction drill bits, albeit a tad expensive, are imo worth their weight. They pretty much cut through any brickwork and leave a clean precise hole.

Edit. With reference to using your little cordless.
 
It depends a lot on the brick. In my old house my 18v cordless could go in to brick with masonry bits.

New house, no chance! Smae drill and I used a full battery on hammer and made a dent about 5mm deep :p

SDS, straight through!
 
finga said:
Depends on your drill more than anything, if its not an sds then youre going to have trouble with brick, sometimes i get by on full speed with hammer action on the little cordless but 9 times out of 10 im going for the sds its much quicker and goes in like butter.
If you want to go in the mortar sometimes it chews out a bigger hole, if that happens get some no nails and fill the hole, poke the plug in and leave it to dry
Click to expand...
It's really not about the drill mostly. You make it sound like an SDS is a requirement.
Yes a hammer action drill will take longer but he's only putting a few shelves up.
I can't say I have ever not been able to drill a hole with a hammer action drill.
 
Just bought a new 91NM Makita 18V Lithium cordless, it makes holes in walls like a hot knife through butter. My old ~30NM 14.4V Ni-Cad had a bit more of a hard time but it got there, as above good bits are important, additionally a couple of times I had to start off with a small hole and work up.
 
robj20 said:
It's really not about the drill mostly. You make it sound like an SDS is a requirement.
Yes a hammer action drill will take longer but he's only putting a few shelves up.
I can't say I have ever not been able to drill a hole with a hammer action drill.
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Same here and my house was made with accrington brick which i always got told was one tough mother.
 
Just make sure you've got a good quality drill bit, you can get through with a cordless but it would be better if you had a corded but only if you've got one to hand or can borrow one. Make sure you have a hoover ready for the dust lol
 
I recently put up some home cut shelves into brick and my 18V black and decker cordless got me through the job. It was hard work, lots of charging and elbow grease (variety of brick dust colour coming out, easier in some places than others but ultimately doable).

Right after I tried to use the same drill to put up a TV wall bracket, but I couldn't drill deep enough with enough accuracy to fit the bolts through the bracket frame. It was OK for the shelves where I didn't need to be dead on (they still worked out dead level by eye and pretty damn close with spirit level), but for the mount I borrowed neighbours corded power drill. That thing went in like a hot knife through butter and it was much easier to be accurate. The job would have been much easier if I used this from the start, albeit the cord might have been a bit of an annoyance.

So I'd say it's definitely worth using a corded drill if you have a decent number of holes to drill. And yes, aim to drill the brick not the mortar, but if you end up having to do mortar then it's not the end of the world.
 
A decent cordless will be fine.
Bits of course make a difference, there is a big difference between a set of say 5 masonry bits for £8 or so, and the rubbish you get thrown in with the drill

Also make sure you don't overheat the bit if its hard work. Better to drill a bit, stop, let it cool down, drill a bit more etc than just go go go and overheat the cutting edge.

I also often start with a small hole and then enlarge it. As its easier to drill the small one first its far easier to get the alignment right, then change straight to a larger one to make the hole you need, as the bit will follow the already cut small hole.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I also often start with a small hole and then enlarge it. As its easier to drill the small one first its far easier to get the alignment right, then change straight to a larger one to make the hole you need, as the bit will follow the already cut small hole.
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If anything is ever a bit tough to get through, this is the method I use also
The only time my Ryobi hammer drill struggled was going into a lintel above a window in our old house, and my older plug-in SDS worked it's magic instead
 
I feel the people who say you need a plug-in drill have only ever used really rubbish/old cordless drills. I've used my cordless Dewalt (not even the top model) to drill 30cm (depth) holes with a 16mm masonry bit through solid brick walls.

Unless you need to do something really massive a cordless really is all you need. Plus i moved into this house 3 weeks ago and am still on the original charge for both my drill and impact driver. Admittedly i've just been going round putting up shelves/furniture/tv's etc but it's been super handy.
 
Marvt74 said:
I feel the people who say you need a plug-in drill have only ever used really rubbish/old cordless drills. I've used my cordless Dewalt (not even the top model) to drill 30cm (depth) holes with a 16mm masonry bit through solid brick walls.

Unless you need to do something really massive a cordless really is all you need. Plus i moved into this house 3 weeks ago and am still on the original charge for both my drill and impact driver. Admittedly i've just been going round putting up shelves/furniture/tv's etc but it's been super handy.
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Its probably the Liion vs Nicad really.
Nicad is already dropping voltage the moment its off charge, with liion its nigh on 100% until the very end.

9.6v (as a lot of nicad were) Nicad, vs 14/18v liion is a world of difference
 
yeah I have an 18v liion cordless hammer and I put up couple of exterior lights recently..drilled into modern brickwork with no problem as long as you are using decent masonry bits.

I always found older victorian bricks were far more dense and much harder work
 
robj20 said:
It's really not about the drill mostly. You make it sound like an SDS is a requirement.
Yes a hammer action drill will take longer but he's only putting a few shelves up.
I can't say I have ever not been able to drill a hole with a hammer action drill.
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I have loads of times tbh but that's for work, usually a 18v hammer drill is all that's needed though.

In my house if you use a sds drill you will blow the brick away a 18v hammer gives a clean hole.
 
I didn't read all the other posts so sorry if I am repeating what has already been said.

It's mostly depends on the type and state of the brick. Standard bricks are easy to drill and get easier as they get older. Engineering bricks are a devil to drill and destroy bits at a scary rate. Engineering bricks while very strong are also brittle so they can shatter or explode when used with an impact drill. Basically the harder the brick and the larger the hole the more grunt you need in a drill. For standard bricks a simple battery power general purpose drill will do for small holes up to about say 8mm, but for engineering bricks the same drill will be struggling a tad and no matter what drill you use the bits won't last very long at all. For larger holes or harder bricks you need a more powerful drill and best a dedicated masonry drill. A dedicated masonry drill is lower RPM and higher impact energy. Invariably these are sold with SDS chucks so you need SDS bits to fit them. Higher impact energy may well shatter engineering bricks so use the hammer with care. A good big SDS will go up to about 30mm then up to 100mm with a core bit. For really big holes, above about 100mm, you need a dedicated core drill, and that's only in to standard bricks. If you need anything that big in engineering bricks you are best getting a specialist drilling company in.
 
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