Drilling Instead Down into a Wall instead of Chasing it

Ruskey

Hello,
I'm trying to fit a small TV up high on a wall in the corner of a room. There are no power or coax cables there.

I have access above this wall in a storage area that's used for nothing.

Instead of chasing the wall could I just drill down with a long (about 2 feet) masonry drill bit through the middle of the edge side of the block so I could feed the cables down it?

Would it be easy enough to keep the drilling in the centre so it doesn't poke out either side of the block or would it knock the plaster off the wall? Or are their any other things you can think of that would make this method not work?

I'd like to avoid chasing the wall if possible but if drilling down through the wall is a stupid idea then I'll just chase it anyway.

dpofloinn

Firstly lining up you holes will be painfull, secondly trying to feed cables down the hole will be heartbreaking,thirdly if you slip with the drill or your angle is wrong you will knock lumps out of the wall and plaster.Would you consider running your cables on the surface inside some conduit?

DublinDilbert

Chase out you back box location, then drill up and at a slight angle. If it's only 2ft you should get away with it. Make sure the angle is right and you stay inside the wall. The 1m drill bits from aldi/lidl are great for this.

You might want to drill up two holes, one for the power the other for the co-ax.

Ruskey

I don't think lining up the holes should be too bad, I'm chiseling out a back box for a double socket and a single for coax/sat cable so I shouldn't have to be too accurate to get it as long as the drilled hole is central enough through the block.

Feeding the cables shouldn't be too difficult as I'm only going a few feet down and I have electrician push/pull rods if I need them.

The biggest worry I have is that the plaster would start falling off with the vibration of the SDS drill. Of course, keeping the drilling straight is also a worry but hopefully shouldn't be too bad seeing as I'm only going 2 or 3 feet down.

Yeah, 2 holes might be the way to go, I've an inch bit and a half inch. The inch bit would easily fit the 2 cables but I think I'll stay away from the inch one for this if I do it as I could be asking for trouble if I use it

What do you think about the plaster staying on while drilling?

bbam

I think you're in for heartache if you try this..
A 4inch block (which is most probably what you are talking about), will likely fracture under that sort of pressure.. by the time your down 1 foot how do you plan to remove the dust, the volume of dust will choke the drill head and bind it up causing extreme outward pressure, this will fracture the block.
Blocks just aren't built for point loading like causing high forces in a small area inside it... Completely different to drilling down into solid concrete..

Chase the wall or run some trunking down..

GreeBo

Won't the TV itself likely hide any trunking?

Save yourself the pain, you could even install the socket and coax point in the attic space and just run the cables.....

jpb14

bbam wrote: »

I think you're in for heartache if you try this..
A 4inch block (which is most probably what you are talking about), will likely fracture under that sort of pressure.. by the time your down 1 foot how do you plan to remove the dust, the volume of dust will choke the drill head and bind it up causing extreme outward pressure, this will fracture the block.
Blocks just aren't built for point loading like causing high forces in a small area inside it... Completely different to drilling down into solid concrete..

Chase the wall or run some trunking down..

The OP will also need a hole at least 12mm in diameter for a single length of 2.5 T&E to be fished down for power.And if the OP is looping off a socket/ring circuit above than the hole will need to be at least 15mm for passing 2 lengths of 2.5 T&E down.
Then a 12-15mm hole for 2 x co-ax for the likes of Sky or UPC or FTA (watch 1 and record another).That indeeed is alot of material taken out of a block,especially when drilling downwards and from 1 block into another.You are thern possibly getting into unknown structural issues
The OP should forget about it and just use a small length of 25mm wide surface mounted stickyback trunking in the corner of the room.This can then be painted the same colour as the wall.

Ruskey

Thanks a million folks for the replies. I think I'll sack that idea then!

One thing I forgot to mention was that there was coving at the top of the wall/edge of ceiling that I didn't want to cut and was one of the reasons for not just sticking conduit against the wall.

It's not that big a deal if I have to cut it though was just hoping I could avoid it.

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful.

GreeBo

Stupid question, is the wall wet plastered or plasterboard?
I'm assuming it's wet, but don't think you ever said...

gutteruu

Whats in the room behind. If its a utility or junk room, you could run conduit down that side and drill through to tv.

Ruskey

It's wet plaster on the wall and the other room is the sitting room can't really run the cable down that wall.

Thanks again for all the replies, was good to get everyone's opinion.

Sir Arthur Daley

jpb14 wrote: »

The OP will also need a hole at least 12mm in diameter for a single length of 2.5 T&E to be fished down for power.And if the OP is looping off a socket/ring circuit above than the hole will need to be at least 15mm for passing 2 lengths of 2.5 T&E down.
Then a 12-15mm hole for 2 x co-ax for the likes of Sky or UPC or FTA (watch 1 and record another).That indeeed is alot of material taken out of a block,especially when drilling downwards and from 1 block into another.You are thern possibly getting into unknown structural issues
The OP should forget about it and just use a small length of 25mm wide surface mounted stickyback trunking in the corner of the room.This can then be painted the same colour as the wall.

Do you realise that alot more material is normally removed from a block when normally chasing a wall for services i.e in a new build?

GreeBo

The point wasn't the amount of material, it was the amount a drill bit would have to remove, without the pressure blowing out the block.
Very little pressure on the block while chasing, lots while drilling.

jpb14

WikiHow wrote: »

Do you realise that alot more material is normally removed from a block when normally chasing a wall for services i.e in a new build?

1st of all my entire post was in reply to another poster who mentioned about blowing out the block wall due to the nature of drilling down and the size of a standard 4 inch building brick.I 100% completely agree with that members post and opinions on the matter.

The amount of material that would have to be taken out of a block from drilling down through it for 2 feet with an sds drill and 600mm x 15mm drill bits is alot of material and also possible serious issues of blowing the blocks and causing serious structural issues if this happened.Chasing 15-20mm out of a wet plastered block wall with a wall chaser or a small angle grinder wall doesnt create a big pressure build up in the block wall.Yes it removes about the same amount of material (maybe a tad more) but its not going to cause a pressure build up and blow the wall out.
But drilling that far down through the block wall with a big sds drill and big sds bits is dangerous for this very reason.Hense why a few different people here have mentioned drilling down being dangerous.

Dtp1979

If using standard SDS and not SDSmax then there should be no safety issue. Drill down 2-3 inches at a time. Stick a Hoover over the 15mm hole and it'll take out any dust. The hardest part of this whole process would be keeping the drill dead straight and not veering out through the block either side

...__...

What if you drilled down the centre of the block, use the hoover to remove dust then place the bit in the hole and use a stud detector to find the correct place to a drill second hole to meet that. the only problem is keeping the drill straight 2' bore can go very bad if even a tiny bit off. Id tape a small level to the drill and stop evey inch to check your progress.