making 4-inch holes in concrete for restaurants

Ever wonder how the tables and chairs that look like they are planted in the concrete or tile found at many restaurants get to appear that way? Core drilling is many times a preferred method for installing such things. At some point, a designer or owner decided on a plan to make the business, or in some cases, even homes, have embedded tables and chairs as a way of seating for the dining or entertainment area. This is even more popular with swimming pools and swim-up bars and tiki's that some like to have.

Here in North Carolina we have core drilled holes for restaurants tables and chairs for years. A recent trend we would like to note is the before the great pandemic most of these types of core drilling projects took place indoors, usually through commercial-grade floor tile or carpet, down into the concrete sub-floor below. Now coming to the second winter of the pandemic most of these types of projects are taking place outdoors. We assume to limit the number of people inside the building.

Pretty blue core holes

the pictures are from two different jobs near the Raleigh area, one in Cary the other in Apex, NC. The second picture, though a bit sun bright, shows the concrete pad where the coring took place. The BlueFlag color blue dots are the core drill holes before we took a 3-pound hammer and a chisel and popped the cores so they would break and come out the holes. As you can see the pattern right now doe not make much sense. But once the table is installed and the chairs are put in place then it all comes together to make the dining areas that we have gotten used to in these modern ages. Years ago our providing contractor had asked that we core all the way through the subfloor and hit the dirt below, or in most cases in North Carolina, clay or sand. Recently the requests are to stop just short of busting through to the bottom so that it makes pouring the liquid pourable anchoring cement into the holes not seep out through the bottom into the mud and make pouring the dining furniture a long endeavor. Of course, this is an ole handrail installer's trick to save on wasting anchoring cement into porous holes,..yea we suggested it.

Commericial Restaurants often use core drilling.

Of the number of projects we do that Commercial restaurants make up about 10 percent of the work we perform each year. Other types of uses that a restauranteur might find a need for a core drilled hole are floor drains, electrical floor boxes, barriers, and bollards.

The Fame Statue before it was relocated

Today it was our honor to be core drilling for the Daughters of the Confederacy at the new site of the relocated Fame statue to the Old Lutheran Cemetery in Salisbury, North Carolina. Established in 1768 by John Lewis Beard, the cemetery is located at 515 N. Lee Street. 175 tombstones for Confederate soldiers were installed at the cemetery in 1996 according to a WBTV channel 3, Charlotte, NC news story on the subject.

We ourselves we just proud to be part of any historical site work no matter who it is for. We drilled 14 4-inch holes in the 10-inch slab of concrete that the statue will rest on. the reason for the holes was to install solid ironwork provided by Cornette Ironworks, which is a talented and well-established steel fence and ironwork fabrication company here near Charlotte, NC. The reason is clear these days as to why heavy-duty fencing is needed, as vandals sometimes get giddy and tear things up. At one point I was timed on the amount of time it took to core drill one 4-inch hole through the concrete. Turns out it took 2 min. and 3 seconds. How about that? So in the end we got the 14 holes drilled in about an hour and a half, mainly because I am a yapper once you get me started. The concrete itself was indeed 10 inches thick but was not too tough to drill at all. The diamond core drill bits we sell and also use can cut pretty fast. The total time may have taken 2 hours from job start to job finish. Much of that could be attributed to the comparison of Cornette ironworks and Carolina Precision Core Drilling and the types of work that each of us respective two companies do in the North Carolina and Virginia areas

Fast enough to do a small project like this one in the two hours total time, including yapping, setup, teardown, and back in the truck to go if you put your mind to it. Though we expected some protesters the day that we did the work, amazingly there were none to be found. our position on the subject is as follows: Everybody has a right to live and be free from oppression and to have their own opinions, often walking in the shoes of your foe, adversary or partner will change your opinion, for better or worse.

Anyhow the iron bars that will be built around the new located statue will be strong and it will take more than a few dozen persons to uproot it. For years I had passed the Fame statue as it stood at the upper heart of Salisbury on Innes St. but now it will be tucked away in one of the town's hidden corners for fewer to see. While coring this project probably one of the things I have heard that made me stop and think for the moment is "those people should have picked their own cotton", think how that would have changed things. I wonder if that idea had ever occurred to anyone else. Maybe there is one of those altered reality fiction books that is based on that type of story. If there is I am not aware of it.

The Fame Statue after it was relocated

During the summer month of August we had another small core drilling project in Salisbury, North Carolina. The early morning job consisted of core drilling three 1 1/2 inch penetrations through the back of the new Smoke Pit restaurant, which used to be called Wings, on Faith Rd, just across from the Aldi's grocery store. The holes were to get power into the freezer to provide power to the cooling units.

Afterwards we stopped by the old confederate graveyard to check to see if the Fame statue had been moved yet or not. Alas, indeed it had. So we had to get a picture of it in the new location. The long black 2 x 2 steel posts are embedded into the concrete that we had bored holes for early this year. In between are solid bar pickets and cross-members. Quite a formidable caging to keep the statue safe.