How to make a hole in a tile for a pipe

When laying ceramics, there is almost always a need to cut holes of different sizes in it. In this case, you have to solve the problem of how to make a hole in the tile for a pipe, socket, lamp, ventilation shaft. The task is complicated by the fact that the industry produces a wide range of different devices and devices for cutting holes in ceramics, and choosing a suitable device should not only take into account the size of the socket, but also taking into account the types of ceramic tiles.

Also, during repair or tiling work, the choice of method depends on whether the tiles laid on the walls are processed or whether holes are cut during the laying process. In some cases, if there are installed pipelines, it is necessary to use combined cutting methods using a tile cutter and power tools with various types of attachments.

Fig. 1 Holes in tiles for pipes

How to make a hole in a tile for a pipe

To cut through holes in ceramics, a wide range of household and construction components are used, which are used in conjunction with a drill, hammer drill, screwdriver, jigsaw and angle grinder.

Drilling with a ceramic drill

Typically, the walls in the kitchen or bathroom are laid with glazed ceramics, which have a soft base and a top layer of durable and smooth glaze (tiles). For drilling it, special feather drills have been developed with a flat, spade-shaped tip with pointed edges, which are practically useless when using any of them when working with harder tile materials (porcelain stoneware).

Fig. 2 Method of drilling a hole in a tile with a flap drill

The main problem when using drills is removing the top layer of glaze on which the tip slides. To do this, apply masking tape to the glazed surface (several layers can be glued) and mark the point for the future hole. Using a tile drill, you can make a large-radius cutout by making a series of holes around its perimeter, although the tip will quickly fail.

Drilling holes using a carbide drill bit for concrete

Drills with a Pobedit tip for concrete are widely used to create small holes in laid tiles; the household drill used should have adjustable speed. When working on tiles, several rules should be followed:

It is better to drill at low speeds.
To avoid splitting the surface of the tile, holes are drilled very carefully without perforation.
It is also necessary to apply minimal pressure to the electric drill or hammer drill, which increases as it passes through the tile layer.

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Article on the topic:
Calibrator for metal-plastic pipes - purpose and operating instructions. Perhaps while reading about how to make a hole in a tile for a pipe, it will also be interesting to learn about the existing types of calibrators used in the installation of metal-plastic pipes, technology and instructions for working with them.

Drilling holes using diamond core bits

Diamond-coated crowns are one of the convenient ways to create cutouts for sockets and pipes, while a circle of the required diameter is obtained by selecting the appropriate cylinder.

To cut a hole with a crown, proceed as follows:

Place masking tape on the glazed side of the tile to mark the center point of the hole.
Using a drill, they go deep into the center of the hole, and you can use a drill not only from the kit, but also any drill for drilling, and then replace it with a product from the kit.
At low speeds, use a crown to cut through the tiled surface until the contour of the circle is deepened to a sufficient distance. In this case, it is not necessary to cut through it completely; it is easily knocked out if the deepening is incomplete.

Crowns and ballerinas

There are special tools that can be used to easily make a smooth hole in a tile for an outlet or pipe. The easiest way is to use a crown of the appropriate diameter. It is put on the drill, installed exactly at the location of the drilling process and turned on. In just a few seconds, a diamond cutting tool makes an even hole of the required diameter in the tile.

In order not to displace the tool relative to the center of the hole, it is necessary to choose it with a centering element. This is a cone sticking out in the middle, which will need to be installed exactly in the center of the future hole. You can use special templates made of metal or plastic for drilling. They are installed on the tile plane in the required place, and a hole is drilled through it with a crown. The template prevents the tool from moving to the side. In this case, one template can have several holes with different diameters.

By the way, crowns can be different in terms of cutting edge. This can be a regular edge coated with diamond or tungsten. Crowns can be equipped with teeth of different configurations, made of pobedite or carbide tipped.

Attention! The vibration of the drill causes the tile to break. Therefore, a wooden substrate must be placed under it. You only need to drill at low speeds; one hole usually takes 1-2 minutes.

As for the ballerina, this is an ordinary drill with two cutters installed on both sides. All three cutting tools are located on one holder. There is also a ruler on it, which can be used to set the distance from the drill to the cutters, which determine the radius of the future hole on the tile. It is important to correctly position the drill in the center of the circle being cut. The cutting tool is installed in a standard drill chuck.

It should be noted that these two cutters (crown and baller) are the best way to cut a hole in the tile. Its edges will be smooth, clean, without burrs or chips. If the process is carried out correctly, cracks will never appear, because the cutting edges themselves are either diamond coating, tungsten, or hardened steel. That is, materials that can withstand heavy loads and cut almost any hard material.

Cutting holes in ceramic tiles with improvised tools

As mentioned above, in the manufacture of tiles, rather soft materials are used that can be processed with most household tools. The process is greatly simplified if you keep the ceramic product in water for some time; you can work on wall ceramics with the following consumables and household tools.

Metal drills. They drill holes in soft tiles using ordinary drills for metal processing, the main thing is to use a drill or hammer drill at very low speeds and cool the drill. During the process, its edge must be regularly sharpened - the dulling of the cutting edge of the blade, unlike Pobedit or diamond drills, will occur much faster.

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Pliers. A situation often arises when a hole needs to be made at the edge. For these purposes, it is sufficient to use only pliers or special wire cutters, with the help of which small pieces are broken off from the edge until the desired cut is obtained.

Diamond strings. When using strings for cutting, you will need a household hacksaw for metal, into which the string is fixed; the cut occurs along the contour of the cut fragment through a drilled hole of small radius.

Glass cutter. A glass cutter can successfully make straight cuts when using tiles to seal walls with water pipes located in them in cases where the cut area is located within the contour of the tile. To create a hole, cut the tile in the center of the cut-out area, then use pliers to bite out the desired hole. If desired, you can make the cut from the glass cutter almost invisible - to do this, the tiles are glued on the inside with ceramic glue, and after drying, they are glued to the wall using tile adhesive.

Features of working with tiles

To accurately cut a hole in a tile for an outlet, you should adhere to the following rules:

Marking. You need to mark the area where you drill the hole using a marker - mark the outline on the outside of the tile.
Pasting. If we are talking about glossy tile material, you should cover the cutting area with mounting tape or adhesive tape. This process will prevent the drill bit from slipping while cutting. You can make an outline with a nail by scratching the surface along the markings.
Wetting. Professional craftsmen usually use special equipment that wets the tiles with water when cutting. But you can simply place the tiles in water for an hour to reduce dust formation and prevent cracking. You need to cut tiles at low speed. The diamond blade is used for dry cutting.

Safe distance. It is necessary to drill with a distance from the edge of at least 15 mm to avoid spalling.
Convenience. To make a hole conveniently, you need to guide the tool away from you from any edge. If you change the processing direction during drilling, the cut lines may not converge. Cutting must be done exclusively from the front side. If the tiles are already on the wall, you need to drill a hole with a hand drill.

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How to drill a hole in large diameter tiles - step by step guide

When carrying out repair work, there is often a need to obtain holes with a large diameter of 100 mm. for installing sewer outlets or drains in floors. Crowns and ballerinas of this size for household purposes are difficult to find on sale; drills take a long time to complete the job, so the optimal method is to use an angle grinder. Ceramic cutting is carried out as follows:

First of all, to reduce dust and make cutting easier, the tiles are immersed in water for a while. It should be borne in mind that all adhesive compositions are designed for gluing dry tiles, so after cutting the hole it will take some time for it to dry. To speed up the work, many tilers do not wet the ceramic, gluing it immediately after cutting the fragment.
On the inside, use a marker or pencil to mark the outline of the cut area. Many tilers do this on the glazed side, which later results in the glaze clumping and producing poor quality edges.
A round fragment is cut out from the inside. The large diameter of the hole allows you to do this immediately along the contour without preliminary cross-cuts in the center and cutting out squares. At the same time, the grinder is held at an angle with an inclination towards the center of the circle; first, a small depression is made, which is increased with each pass. The radius of the cut circle is made several millimeters smaller than the required size.
After several passes of the grinder around the circumference, it is necessary to determine the moment when the circle can be easily knocked out; for reliability, you can leave solid slits in some places.
Since the circle was cut from the inside, its edges inside will be greatly thinned - this will make it easy to give it the correct geometric shape with wire cutters or pliers.

Fig.9 Cutting the middle hole with a grinder

Self-tapping screws with LM tip - bugs

There may be a situation where it is necessary to make holes in the tiles at a site or at home, but, as luck would have it, there are no crowns or drills. How to cut a hole in this case? It doesn’t matter if you have at least a few self-tapping screws with a drill-shaped tip that can be used to do what you have planned.

To do this, the diameter of the pipe is outlined and along the internal contour, screws are screwed in and out, thus cutting a hole in the ceramic tile. The closer the holes are to each other, the easier it will be to squeeze out the center.

Using all of the above methods, you can cut a round hole of almost any circumference.

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Straight Tile Cutting Tool

When carrying out tiling work, ceramics are cut in a straight line using the following special tool.

Glass cutter

The glass cutter is suitable for cutting wall tiles; it is quite difficult to cut hard porcelain floor tiles with it; work with a roller glass cutter is performed in the following sequence:

Place the product on a flat, hard surface and draw a line along the ruler with slight pressure towards you.
Break the tile against a sharp hard corner along the drawn line.

Manual tile cutter

A standard tile cutter is a bed with a rubberized surface, above which there are two guides - the cutting element mounted on the handle moves along them. The slab is placed inside the device towards the base, the cut is made by smoothly moving the cutting wheel along the surface with slight pressure. Upon completion of the pass, the handle lowers and a special lever presses on the slab, breaking it along the cutting line.

For convenience, each tile cutter is equipped with an angular ruler, which allows you to cut pieces of the same size; high-quality expensive tile cutters have a floating bed and one durable guide, which allows you to cut with high quality edges.

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Electric tile cutter

The main elements of the device are an electric motor, on the shaft of which a diamond-coated disk is installed, and a water pump, immersed in a cuvette with water and supplying liquid to the working surface of the disk during cutting.

An electric tile cutter is a rather expensive device; it is used for high-quality cutting of tiles at right and sharp angles without dust; it can be used to cut narrow strips less than 10 mm wide, which is difficult with a conventional mechanical tile cutter.

When cutting holes for a pipe, an experienced tiler needs only one grinder with a diamond disc for concrete. To drill deep through holes in walls, it is better to use special crowns or Pobedit drills for concrete. In domestic conditions, in the absence of an angle grinder, holes in soft tiles can be made using special drill attachments in the form of feather drills, ballerina drills and crowns, while the price of the latter is too high for one-time household use.

Circular drill bit "ballerina"

The tool is a guide drill, on which a rod is attached, holding a movable cutter. During rotation, the drill and cutter rotate simultaneously, making the necessary hole in the tile.

This product is good for its versatility, thanks to a movable cutter that can be adjusted to any diameter. Accordingly, if you are faced with the task of cutting a hole in a tile for an outlet, take a closer look at this method.

Pros and cons of a circular drill:

This is a big plus - you don’t need to spend money on expensive diamond crowns, just buy a “ballerina” and you can cut any hole in the tile for sockets and more.
But there is also a disadvantage of this tool - it is not suitable for professional use, since after 30 working processes the cutter will become dull and will no longer perform its functions efficiently, because of this the ceramics will suffer greatly.

How to use the ballerina correctly

All work consists of several stages:

A hole for the socket is marked.
The movable cutter is adjusted to the required diameter.
The glaze is cut from the front side.
Then the tile is turned over and cut from the back side, but not all the way.
We finish the cut on the front side.

To avoid chipping, it is recommended to carry out carving work at low speeds.

Using an angle grinder

The question of how to make a large hole in a tile arises in cases where it is necessary to install pipes or other plumbing communications in a bathroom or toilet, and also, if necessary, install an electrical outlet in these rooms. If the tiles are not yet fixed to the wall, then you can make a hole in this product for a pipe or socket using a regular grinder.

Start cutting a round hole with a grinder by stepping back slightly inward from the intended circle

Using a grinder, a shaped or round hole in a ceramic tile is made in the following sequence:

The contours of the future hole must first be marked, for which you will need a marker.
The angle grinder should be equipped with a diamond blade designed for dry cutting.
You need to start cutting from a convenient edge of the tile, moving the tool away from you.
When cutting a hole in a tile for a socket or pipe, you can stop at any time and start processing from a more convenient side, but then there is a chance that the cut lines being formed will not converge.

It should be kept in mind that you should only use a grinder to create a shaped or round hole in ceramic tiles from the front part of the product. At the same time, it is necessary to control that the cut is smooth, neat and without chips. When performing this procedure, strict safety precautions must be followed to minimize the risk of injury.

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Using a jigsaw

Holes in tiles intended for placement of sockets or for installation of pipes can be made using an electric jigsaw equipped with diamond-coated wire. Such a device can be used both to start forming a hole from the edge of the tile, and for drilling carried out in the center of the workpiece. In the latter case, it is necessary to make a preliminary hole, for which an electric drill with a drill is used.

To cut tiles with a jigsaw, use special ceramic files.

The procedure for drilling a hole of significant diameter in a tile, for which an electric jigsaw is used, is performed in the following sequence:

On the front of the tile, the edges of the future hole are preliminarily marked.
If part of the resulting contour coincides with the edge of the tile, you can immediately begin processing.
If the contour does not coincide with the edge of the tile, then a small diameter hole should first be drilled in the workpiece, into which the cutting thread of an electric jigsaw must be threaded.
A circular or figured cutout is made along the inner contour of the marking. This will allow you to maintain the size of the hole being formed.

Secure the tiles with a clamp before cutting

Using the method described above, a shaped or round hole in a ceramic tile can be made using a regular hacksaw. However, in this case, the quality of its execution will be significantly worse than when using an electric jigsaw.

Glass cutter

Some craftsmen claim that using an ordinary glass cutter and wire cutters you can drill a hole in ceramic tiles. But with one caveat, if this hole must be drilled near the edge of the tiled element.

As usual, before cutting out a piece of ceramic, you need to mark the shape and dimensions of a circle on the surface of the tile. After that, an incision is made exactly along the line with a glass cutter. It is very important to make the cut deep, but at the same time create as little pressure as possible on the tile. You overdid it and got a crack or break in the material.

Next, you need to tap the material on the back side of the tile. Thereby increasing the depth of the cut. That is, everything is done exactly the same as with cutting glass. Then you take wire cutters or pliers in your hands and use them to bite off pieces of ceramic material according to precisely applied markings. After which the edges are processed to maximum evenness.

Trimming with a glass cutter

Many home craftsmen often face the problem of cutting ceramic tiles. It is irrational to buy an additional tool for one case. Therefore, you can get by with a good glass cutter.

The cut must pass along the front part, therefore, after measuring, the required size is marked on the tile and carried out with a continuous movement with a glass cutter until a well-cut train appears on the tile. Use the back side of the glass cutter to tap the cutting line (seam).

After this, use wire cutters or pliers to remove the cut piece with a sharp downward movement. It happens that if the job is unsuccessful, nicks remain, which can be smoothed out with sandpaper or a stone.

To make the material more pliable, it is recommended to soak it in warm water. But it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to cut a hole in a tile for an outlet with a glass cutter.

Drill

A drill, as a cutting tool for processing ceramic tiles, is not used for drilling so often. But if you approach this process correctly, you can make a hole in the tile for any pipe. True, for this you will need to use a small diameter drill (up to 5 mm). But the smaller the drill, the more places you will have to drill. In this case, it will be necessary to drill not exactly along the applied markings, but slightly inward, so that the edge of the drill is closer to the contour of the circle.

In order for the drill to easily enter the ceramic plane of the tile, it is necessary to use a special cutting tool designed specifically for ceramics. There are several types that differ from each other in the design of the tip.

Spear drills. They are usually used at low drill speeds. It is recommended to use them if ceramic tiles are already installed on the wall.
Carbide drills with single-sided edge sharpening.
Pobedite drill. By the way, this is what is most often used in this operation. It is important not to rush here, otherwise the tool may jam inside the drilled hole. It is recommended to add water to the drilling site.

It is clear that it will not be possible to accurately create round contours of the hole for the pipe using drills. Therefore, the contour will need to be modified. That is, first, many holes are made according to the applied markings. After which the inner part is squeezed out, leaving a hole with uneven edges. Using pliers, you will need to remove all protrusions, that is, reduce the circumference to a minimum of irregularities and defects. Next, an emery tool is used to level the edges, for example, a needle file or a file with fine notches.