I am installing shelves in the garage. The walls are concrete, and drilling for restraints to the walls is very hard going. Does anyone have advice to make it easier?
The plan is to screw a fitting to the wall which will accept a zip tie to fasten the shelf posts to the wall.
Impact drill(hammer drill) Masonry bits.
Might dampen the bit. Keep the concrete dust blown out as you go.
Safety glasses.
I have masonry bits, and ordered advertised better ones. I do wish I had a hammer drill.
Hammer drills and bits can be rented. Try Home Depot if there’s no other rental place near you. Mark all the spots and you’ll be done in an hour.
Are you using a hammer drill and a masonry bit? The second should be obvious, but the first may not. My approximately 15 year old DeWalt cordless drill has a hammer setting on the chuck, selecting this causes the bit to pulse in and out as well as spin around. For most concrete and smallish diameter bits this drills almost as fast as a regular bit into softwood. However, if your wall is a concrete aggregate, with stones embedded, even a masonry bit won’t do much if you hit one. Also, if you need to drill a deeper hole, be sure to pull the drill back periodically to let the concrete dust escape so it doesn’t bind on the shaft of the drill bit.
Ninja’d by @Beckdawrek - is there a tool rental place nearby where you could rent a hammer drill?
Edited to add, double ninja’d by @TriPolar
I’ll check out rentals.
I do recall a huge maintenance guy giving up with a hammer drill when we needed a hole through concrete at work. I dress out at 105, and my back hurts like hell, still working on the first hole.
What diameter holes are you drilling?
With a hammer drill, it is actually counter-productive to push hard on the drill, with too much force the tip of the bit can stay fixed at the base of the hole and then the whole drill starts jumping back and forth. Never use more than moderate pressure, let the hammer action do the work for you.
1/4 inch.
I will follow that advice if I can rent one.
My 100 lb self did it. A few years ago.
But you do have to let the tool to it.
Did you do it with an impact drill? Will Mr. Beck let you help me?
Yeah, you need a hammer drill. I was once trying to drill concrete with a masonry bit in a standard drill and was taking forever. I finally broke down and bought a hammer drill. It was like night and day. I suppose you can try to rent one, but I see cheap ones for about $30 on Amazon, and then you’ll have it for next time you need one.
BTW, don’t confuse a hammer drill with an impact driver. Those are two different things.
I did use an impact drill. I used to be quite good with power tools. Alas, those days are behind me.
Mr. Wrek would love to farm me out, I think I might be too much bother, nowadays.
ETA, yes hammer drill is what you need.
Yep, when I bought my first hammer drill, I pretty much destroyed it in a day by leaning all of my 190-220lbs into it while drilling into my foundation. I can be an impatient sonofabitch. But I bought another, learned to relax a bit and let the tool do its job. I’m pretty sure that drill is still around here somewhere…
Yeah, I think you want a hammer drill to get into concrete.
ETA:
Oh my, yes! But now I am sad, because I miss my dad’s air-driven impact wrench. Those things are both marvelous, and the Devi’s tool.
You’ve already got all the advice you need on the drilling part. I want to talk about this:
That is a crazy plan.
Zip ties have no place in supporting shelves. When a shelf is loaded, there is a lot of weight pushing downwards. The shelf post translates a lot of that into a force pulling away from the wall. It’s not all vertical.
Imagine just setting the posts in place against the wall, then turning off gravity and attaching the shelves and loading them with your stuff. Now turn gravity back on. Will it all stay there neatly, punch down through the floor, or will the entire assembly tip forward off the wall like a falling tree? The latter. The force your wall fasteners are fighting is both large and directed horizontally outwards away from the wall. Zip ties won’t work.
Depending on what sort of shelving & posts you’re talking about, I’d be using masonry screws ("tap-con"s) or masonry bolts and expanding lugs to fasten the shelf posts directly to the wall at several points up and down each post. I’d use 4 fasteners on an 6’ tall post and 5 on an 8’ tall post. The stuff people put on garage shelves is heavy.
If I was doing this project I’d stop the drilling until I’d settled the fastener issue. The only thing worse than drilling a set of holes into concrete is needing to do it twice with different sized bits.
I bought a cheap B&D hammer drill about 15 years ago, along with some masonry bits. Did a terrible job of making holes in concrete. Couldn’t figure out why. A couple years later I was helping a buddy with a project, and he was using a $250 DeWalt hammer drill. It was making perfect holes in concrete, and much more quickly vs. mine. So my problem was my drill… his drill used a much higher impact frequency vs. mine.
I once had to drill a 2 inch hole through 4 inches of concrete to run some electrical conduit. Rented everything. Wow, that hammer drill was heavy, but the 2 inch bit went through the concrete with no problem.
I am old enough to recall drilling through concrete blocks to install butterfly bolts which held a wooden doorway-frame to an opening in the wall. (I was about 10 years old) . My Dad’s idea.
The tool was a hardened steel octagonal “star-drill” panted grey, made by black and decker.
10 inches long and had a 4-pointed blade star=shaped end. The person using it held the tool loosely and repeatedly struck the end with a claw hammer, After every 2 blows the “drill” was turned a couple degrees and struck a series of medium heavy blows. The holes needed to be about 3/8th of an inch in diameter.
I did this until after a very long time the bit went through the concrete.
4 holes were required, and I never volunteered to do that again.
That’s how John Henry used to do it. Pro tip, don’t get in a contest against a steam drill.
To follow up on that and what @LSLGuy said, what kind of fasteners do you want to use?