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Reinforced concrete is one of the strongest and most durable building materials around, so it's no surprise that it sees such extensive use in foundations, structural columns, reinforced walls and other robust architectural features. However, this strength and durability can come back to bite you if you need to drill through the reinforced concrete. As such, whether you're drilling a conduit for a water pipe or a small-diameter hole for electrical wiring, choosing the right tools for drilling through your reinforced concrete is vital.

Consequently, many individuals and businesses who need a clean, precise hole drilled through their concrete choose professional core drilling services to do the work for them, and it's easy to see why. This unique drilling method is ideally suited for drilling through the toughest reinforced concretes, and it offers a number of advantages over alternative methods such as hammer and SDS drilling:

Drilling speed

Core drills rotate at incredibly high speeds — so high, in fact, that they require constant water supplies to prevent overheating — and they can drill through the thickest reinforced concrete structures at remarkably high speeds. Because their drill bits are so much wider than those of conventional drills, there is also no need to widen the hole for pipes, wires, etc., once the initial hole has been drilled, making the process even faster.

Minimal spalling

The tremendous speed and cutting power of core drills also ensures that the holes drilled in your concrete are extremely smooth and precise. This minimises the amount of spalling (crumbled, flaky concrete) that is created around the interior surface of the hole, which minimises the overall damage done to your reinforced concrete and precludes the need for reinforcement to prevent the hole from collapsing.

No impact damage

Hammer and SDS drills both drill through concrete by rapidly 'hammering' backwards and forwards while the drill bit rotates. This motion is effective at speeding the drilling process along, but it also does irreversible damage to the concrete immediately surrounding your newly-drilled hole. This damage can be especially noticeable at the surface of your hole and is obviously unwelcome when it comes to structural concrete such as pillars and foundations.

Core drills, on the other hand, have no such back-and-forth motion, and instead rely on the speed of their drill bits and the diamond-hardness of the bit's cutting edges to speed the drilling process. Consequently, the concrete around a hole drilled with core drills loses none of its strength and toughness.

Less disruption

Anybody who has used a hammer drill or who has been near one during operation will tell you just how loud and messy the hammer drilling process can be. Core drilling is much less disruptive, as it creates far less noise and does not create the characteristic vibrations that make pneumatic drills and other hammer drills so notoriously distracting. Core drilling also minimises the amount of dust created during hole creation, leaving you with less cleanup once the work is finished