The core drilling job in South Carolina.

Recently we were called to do a core drilling job in Bennettsville, South Carolina for a local artificial turf contractor that has been a customer of ours for more than 8 years. The order for core drill holes was as this. The Customer needs 3 10-inch holes for an eight-inch schedule forty PVC drainage pipe. He also needs 1 fourteen inch hole for a 12-inch drainage pipe. Both of these sizes of pipe would be depositing their waste load into some brick drainage water basins that had been installed in the Marlboro High School football field since it was built back in the latter part of the 20th century.

It turns out that after arrival and some inspection that the brick water basins were too decrypted to attach our trusty rig to the side of the basin with any type of concrete or masonry anchors that would hold it on the basin wall while the drilling was being done.

The decision to chip the hole out with a hammer drill.

Not all core drill operators core drill all-day, or everyday on any given job. Many times the hole that is needed is located in less than desirable core drilling places and not always can one accomplish the mission at hand with by core drilling. Sometimes you have to get your hammer drill out and do some chipping. Especially if the brick that you are about to try to penetrate is old, terribly falling apart, or high on the wall and tough to reach with a core drilling rig just won't go.

So how do you go about hammer drilling a hole in a brick structure?

List of tools you may need

1. Rotary SDS style hammer drill that hammer drilling and chips
2. A good SDS 1/2 inch or smaller diameter hammer drill bit.
3. A good heavy duty hammer
4. A steel-concrete chisel
5. Maybe a tape measure
6. brush, Rag or shop vac for the dust
7. A pair of good gloves that can take digging in brick

You start by making a pattern

of the size of opening that you want to make in the brick structure. Any type of pattern is acceptable but if you have to fill in around the material that is going to be inserted into the hole then you might not want to make it larger than is needed.

Then take your SDS masonry drill bit and drill around the pattern you make every 1/2" to 1". Drill the holes all the way through and as straight as you can so that your hole will be better formed and it won't look like this is the first hole that you have chipped out of a brick wall.

Make as many holes as you can where the holes in needed. Larger holes and patterns call for more holes to be drilled so the brick will chip or knock out more easily.

Once you are happy with how many holes that you have drilled into the brick then switch your hammer drill to chipping mode and start chipping. On occasion, you may have to take your heavy hammer and give the spot a few good whacks to loosen up the brick so it will fall out more readily. When chipping out brick it it never going to be the prettiest hole in the world so if the hole is to covered up then don't worry about it.

core drilling

Not your typical foundation wall, commercially built foundation walls are full of rebar tied together inside which makes a 10 inch core drill hole in a reinforced concrete wall a challenge. On this particular project, we used one of the older used 10-inch core drill bits that were in the job-box that morning.Like any other type of work, part of a core driller's duties includes using the right bit for the right job. That is not always a new core drill bit as that would not be very profitable for the core drilling company to do. And, in deciding which bit to use to is always from oldest most used bit to the newest.The drilling, or core drilling or even boring if you will, took about 15 minutes once everything was set up. With plenty of cooling water from our onboard tank, we were able to make a perfectly smooth 10-inch hole in the foundation wall. Getting close enough for power and water was essential. A 10 inch hole takes a stout drilling motor that can stay effective through out the drilling process. Usually this is going to be a 20 amp or larger core drill motor that has enough torque to turn the heavy core drill bit and let the diamond teeth do their magic.

cost of drilling a 10 inch hole

this could be a tricky question as the wall was 16 inches thick. The total cost in the end amount to 2300 dollars. As there were 3 10 inch cores to do for this particular core drilling project in Raleigh NC.