Occasional tales from a French fixer-upper

[Newey]

All ceramic tiles I've ever drilled have been without the hammer action to go through the top "glazed" part then put on the hammer for the rest.

[mangocrazy]

I was told explicitly to never use hammer action on tiles. Presumably the hammer action didn't cause the tile to shatter? They are very brittle and will snap if you look at them wrongly in my experience.

[Newey]

The tile will shatter if you hammer through the top surface, once through the top surface the part underneath and can take a hammer, if you have an old tile/offcut give it a try, I'm guessing tiles are the same the world over.

[mangocrazy]

I've got a Trug full of old offcuts/used tiles. I'll give it a try tomorrow...

[Newey]

Put some tape where you want the hole, it helps the drill from sliding about or use a small metal drilling bit to pierce through the glazing then use your masonry bit

[Count Steer]

I've used this type many times to drill ceramic tiles and never had any problems.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-tile-g ... _container

I think my set is diamond rather than carbide but I'd have to check to be sure. Once you're through the glaze it's usually easy peasy. I have sometimes used a drop of water and the tip about sticking a bit of masking tape on is

I think you can use a drop of oil instead of water. (The old school way of drilling glass used to involve making a little ring of wax as a dam to hold a pool of oil but technology has moved on. When I worked in engineering ceramics the machine shop was diamond everything and lots and lots of water/coolant but the work pieces were jolly hard all the way through...you could make tool bits for lathes for high speed machining out of it so it was a bit like picking yourself up by your socks iyswim - what do you machine machine tools with? ).

[mangocrazy]

I've used this type many times to drill ceramic tiles and never had any problems.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-tile-g ... _container

My original set were exactly like that and have served me very well, but faced with the tiles I've fitted recently, they just fell apart or took aeons to drill a hole. I might acquire a set of the super-duper Bosch ones linked to by Screwfix, as tiles for flooring is pretty much de riguer over here.

Agree about the masking tape trick...

[mangocrazy]

Well, it does say 'occasional' in the thread title...

I'm back in the S of F for a few days (right in the middle of a heatwave) solely because EDF/Enedis decided that I should have my old analogue electricity meter replaced by a new 'smart' Linky meter between 08:00 and 12:00 on Monday 23rd June, and my presence was required (hardly surprising, the meter is inside the house).

All this came about due to my complaints to EDF/Enedis that my meter readings were not being accepted due to each reading being lower than the previous one (I have solar panels on the roof and they have the effect of making the meter run backwards). No matter how many times I tried to explain this to bemused operators it simply did not compute.

EDF, and in particular Enedis, are notorious in France for being uncontactable. EDF are the admin side, Enedis are the nuts and bolts/installation people, rather like BT and Openreach in the UK. I had to track down the local Enedis branch using Google maps, and go there in person with a sheaf of documentation to try and talk to a real live human being. I did find one but he wouldn't let me on the premises and our conversation was undertaken either side of a large electrically powered steel gate. I specifically told him when I would be leaving France, but he scheduled installation for two weeks after I got back to the UK, anyway.

So I'm now awaiting Enedis's pleasure on Monday, but I have been able to fix the problem I had with the solar thermal installation, by the simple expedient of replacing the failed 12V DC pump with a doppelganger.

From China...

I bought two, just in case the first one failed, but pump #1 has been executing perfectly for at least ten hours, so at least it wasn't DOA. In fairness, it does look to be a decent piece of kit but I'm always wary of stuff sourced from PRoC, especially when it's running for approx 18 hours per day.

The next concern is whether Enedis will actually turn up. They don't have a great reputation for reliability in France...

[Cousin Jack]

I've used this type many times to drill ceramic tiles and never had any problems.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-tile-g ... _container

My original set were exactly like that and have served me very well, but faced with the tiles I've fitted recently, they just fell apart or took aeons to drill a hole. I might acquire a set of the super-duper Bosch ones linked to by Screwfix, as tiles for flooring is pretty much de riguer over here.

Agree about the masking tape trick...

Get some diamond drills, hollow with waxy lubricant in the centre. Worked a treat on porcelain tiles that had wrecked about 6 bits.

[mangocrazy]

I've used this type many times to drill ceramic tiles and never had any problems.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-tile-g ... _container

My original set were exactly like that and have served me very well, but faced with the tiles I've fitted recently, they just fell apart or took aeons to drill a hole. I might acquire a set of the super-duper Bosch ones linked to by Screwfix, as tiles for flooring is pretty much de riguer over here.

Agree about the masking tape trick...

Get some diamond drills, hollow with waxy lubricant in the centre. Worked a treat on porcelain tiles that had wrecked about 6 bits.

I'll check those out. The ones I mainly need are 5 to 8mm drills to drill holes to fix steel u channel to floors for plasterboard. This time I intend to tile the floor immediately after plasterboarding the ceiling and avoid having to make loads of awkward shaped cuts to fit tiles in between walls when partitioning the space.

[Cousin Jack]

I bought something like this, although I don't recall them being as expensive. It was about 9 years ago so may be different.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-expert ... -set/725fw

[mangocrazy]

I bought something like this, although I don't recall them being as expensive. It was about 9 years ago so may be different.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-expert ... -set/725fw

Blimey. 50 quid ?!? That would buy an awful lot of 'conventional' tile drills...

[Cousin Jack]

I bought something like this, although I don't recall them being as expensive. It was about 9 years ago so may be different.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-expert ... -set/725fw

Blimey. 50 quid ?!? That would buy an awful lot of 'conventional' tile drills...

I was more worried about breaking a tile. I has a bathroom full of them, and no spares. I took me about 2 hours and 3 or 4 broken drills to achieve 1 hole. I had about another 5 or 6 holes to go. The diamond drill did the biz in minutes. No tiles were damaged.

[mangocrazy]

I think I need to buy one of these diamond drills and test it out prior to using it in prime time...

[Cousin Jack]

Porcelain tiles are bastard hard, they destroy the tips of normal masonry drills as well as glass drills.

[mangocrazy]

In other news, the (solar thermal fed) DHW cylinder is registering a temperature of 66 degrees. This is equal to the highest temp it's ever reached.

And there are a couple of hours of high solar gain still to go...

[Mussels]

In other news, the (solar thermal fed) DHW cylinder is registering a temperature of 66 degrees. This is equal to the highest temp it's ever reached.

And there are a couple of hours of high solar gain still to go...

Is there a safety limit when it starts venting or shuts off?

[mangocrazy]

In other news, the (solar thermal fed) DHW cylinder is registering a temperature of 66 degrees. This is equal to the highest temp it's ever reached.

And there are a couple of hours of high solar gain still to go...

Is there a safety limit when it starts venting or shuts off?

I'm the safety limit... I have a radiator plumbed into the circuit that I can send hot water to, by a system of diverter valves, but I've not needed to use it yet. I would need to manually enable it by throwing a couple of levers, but as I'm monitoring it closely that's not a problem. The solar thermal system is only operational while I'm at the house.

When I leave to go back to Blighty I drain the system down completely, disconnect the pump from the solar panel that drives it and cover the solar panel to stop it generating. Then when I arrive back at the house next time I fill the system with fresh (softened) water, reconnect the pump to the solar panel and remove the cover from the solar panel. This means that the system gets flushed and filled with fresh water at least twice a year and no water is left in the system to boil (or freeze) and cause problems.

[ZRX61]

I have a set of what look like small hole saws, but diamond, sized from about 2mm up to 25mm, Cheap as chips on Amazon. Successfully drilled tiles & glass with them.

[ZRX61]

Upon closer inspection it seemed that wherever there was a joint in the T&G chipboard flooring, the tiles had come loose. I can only suspect there was movement of the substrate due to the change in heat/humidity between April and high summer in July leading to the bond between tile/adhesive/substrate fracturing.

One method to prevent that is to put down two layers of the substrate, offset to each other to stop the cracks in tiles. Ive even seen it done where one layer is at 45deg to the other... altho that involves a bit more math when measuring/cutting. The advantage is that the joints in the top layer of substrate is 45 deg to both the lower layer and the tiles... and the two layers of substrate are glued to each other. Nothing moves.

The chipboard T&G flooring here is 1.5in thick.. but if you do the two layer method they can each be 3/4in.