• How long should it take to drill a 10cm deep hole in concrete, with a 16mm SDS Plus drill bit? The drill has 850 watts of power, plugged into usual 220v three pin socket. Doesn't feel like it's making much progress

  • I drilled 60mm deep,20mm diameter holes a couple of times, recently, to secure scaffold loops to provide secure bike locking points.
    I used my own Bosch sds drill. It is notionally rated to 24mm into concrete, but I used a series of sds bits so as not to stress the mains electric motor: 6mm, 8mm, 12mm, 16mm, then 20mm.
    Someone can do the maths, but this splits the volume to be removed (not equally), across the 5 drill bits.
    Using this stepped approach, the drill bits almost pulled themselves into the hole, and there was easy and quick debris removal.

    The concentration of the impact with a smaller diameter sds drill bit will sometimes penetrate a piece of aggregate in concrete whereas your 16mm drill bit could be ineffectively spinning on the aggregate surface.

  • 6mm, 8mm, 12mm, 16mm, then 20mm.
    Someone can do the maths, but this splits the volume to be removed (not equally), across the 5 drill bits.

    6mm: 28.3mm2 = pi * 32
    8mm: 22.0mm2 = pi * (42-32)
    12mm: 62.8mm2 = ...
    16mm: 88.0mm2
    20mm: 113.1mm2

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