Help: Securing 2x6 to concrete

[Eric Gustafson]

Get one of the 1" SDS cheap hammer drills from Harbor Freight (cheaper than renting plus can be used for regular drilling and mixingpaint/mortar later).

I second the vote for the SDS hammer drill at HF. Use it twice and it pays for itself. I personally like the full-sleeved redhead anchor bolts at HD.



You can drill right through the 2x6 as it sits on the floor. Blow out the dust, insert the bolt, crank 'er down, and you are good to go.

[Denise Ohio]

For our toe-ups (parallel treated 2x4 on a 24" foundation wall for a loadbearing strawbale house), I had to install almost 300 anchors and used a rotohammer with SDS drill bit at exactly the size the of a Simpson Titen bolt.

I rented the rotohammer (should have bought one) and bought the bit. The Titen bolt goes in like a lag bolt, so while you have to pre-drill through wood and concrete, it just goes right in without epoxy.

Titens aren't cheap, but they do that we needed them to do. I drilled all the holes first, then the Titens. Be sure to bloe the hole out with a compressor---be sure to wear goggles and respirator because concrete dust will hurt ya.

Good luck.

[Ray Knight]

I second the Harbor Freight. A few years ago we burnt up a smaller older american commercial hammer drill, drilling several fairly large holes to mount a car lift, an hour getting only an inch or two in.. It was saturday, help was there, Harbor Freight was 2 miles away, $79 including a set of drills, 20 minutes later it was all done. I use it about 6 times a year, still works fine, plenty of power, bits holding up. For performance for dollar spent, for occasional use, you can't beat it. Ray Knight

[Tom Maple]

I'll add to the comments by Paul and Rob and Jason - a hammer drill is the way to go. Don't get a drill with a normal chuck and a hammer feature. They are better than a regular drill but a far cry from an SDS type drill. The SDS chuck doesn't loosen with vibration and the bits are designed for percussion use. Many straight shank carbide tipped masonry bits are only for non-percussive use and will fail when used in a drill with a hammer feature.
In our work we drill thousands of holes in concrete and stone each summer. We have used different drills and find the Bosch SDS drills offer the best combination of ease of use and price. They also don't transmit as much vibration to your hands, a real plus when drilling a few hundred holes in a day. And they are fast!

[daniel lane]

Folks,

Thank you so much for your replies. I'm honestly ecstatic at the number of responses over a few days. I wound up making an unscheduled business trip and haven't had time to check the site (this has been happening WAY too much lately, but getting better) and lo and behold, I return after 2 days and I have a second page of responses! Thank you, truly, that's why I'm a contributor.

Based on the responses, my plan is to find a place to rent, rather than buy something right away, but once I wind up fastening 2x6s (yes, they are all treated, PT on the floor, non-PT for the studs) I'll find new words to express my happiness and thank you all again.

Sounds like the hammer drill *is* that important. (And my old B&D is apparently a useless piece of...um...stuff. [That's the thing that drilled for 5 minutes and achieved a 1/4" depth.])



daniel

[Matt Meiser]

I got a Ryobi 1/2" hammer drill for about $60 a couple months back. I've used it with tapcons to mount some shelving to the basement wall and attach the slop sink in the garage to the floor and it was amazingly easier than using a regular drill. Unless you are going to use it a lot, I'd at least give an inexpensive drill a try. One nice thing for me about the Ryobi or the other non-SDS drills is that you can use them as a regular 1/2" drill--something else I rarely need to do, but when I need it I need it. At least on the SDS drill my brother rented, I don't think you could have used it as a regular drill.

[Rob Russell]

I bought a Hitachi rotary hammer from Home Depot's recon table. It looked like someone used it once and returned it. It takes the carbide tipped, SDS splined bits. I've been drilling 3/4" holes and (depending on the application) using lead inserts with lag bolts or the redhead wedge bolts. Even drilling a 3/4" hole, the descriptions of a rotary hammer and how quickly it goes into concrete are tryue. I can drill a 3/4" x 5" deep hole in 15-20 seconds, probably faster if I really pushed the drill.

It's one of those tools a use once a year but - when I use it - I think to myself that there is no other way I'd want to be doing this.

It's off topic, but the little horizontal metal cutting bandsaw (the $200 cheapie imports) fall into the same category.

Rob

[daniel lane]

Okay, I admit it, I'm a bit of a tool snob. I've purchased and used Harbor Freight stuff in the past, and felt like pretty much all of it was crap. That said, I think I finally see the light on "hey, it's cheap, and as long as it lasts for this one job, it's worth it". I will also add the caveat that I've not bought a LOT of HF stuff, so there could well be some decent stuff out there that I haven't seen/used.

Based on suggestions, I looked at HF for a drill for my shop walls/floor. They have three SDS hammer drills that I can see. The first (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41983) is ~$40, as is the second (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=2957), and the third (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=47606) is ~$100. I can't see a major differences between the three, although there are several immediately obvious minor differences.

A quick search locally shows I'd be paying ~$40-$50/day to rent one, so I'm already ahead buying any of these. Anyone have a suggestion for which one to use? Should I look elsewhere for a better one?

I hate to spend money on yet another tool (seriously, did I just say that?), especially one for which I will have only one real job, but I'd rather get my shop done than work for 4 hours to achieve a 1/4" deep hole and 4-5 nails sticking 1/2" out of the bottom plates.


TIA,

daniel

[Fred Voorhees]

Daniel,

Roto-hammer or hammer-drill is the tool for the job. Rent one locally for this small job. I'm a pretty good sized lad and I've done some pretty physical labor. I once tried to use a star drill to cut a "trough" in my basement floor to move a shower drain for a new shower I was building. 4 hours later with chisels, star drill and sledge hammers of various weights, I had 1 1" hole. I rented a roto-hammer or hammer/drill and in 20 minutes I had the trough to move the drain 18".....

P.S. Hammer drills are excellent for driving ground rods for electrical entries into the ground too! Put a socket on it just slightly larger than the diameter of the ground rod. Stand the ground rod where you want it (out side of course) Put the socket over the end of the ground rod, a drill it in....in less than a minute in my cases....I had to put 2 in to meet code on my shop eletrical entry.

Good luck!

Yeah, that's the first thing that I thought of. Were you using a hammer drill? If not, that is your answer.