Drilling through brick and hitting something we can’t get through

[diydrillnovice]

Hello

Complete novice here so could do with some help. We’re trying to anchor a book case to a brick wall. We’ve managed to drill one hole as deep as we need but the other has stopped abruptly less than half an inch into the wall and won’t go any further. I don’t know whether we’ve hit something we shouldn’t have or just come up against a particularly stubborn bit of brick. If we have hit something we shouldn’t have, is this dangerous? If we haven’t, is the solution just to refill the hole and start another somewhere nearby and hope we don’t hit the same issue?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

How old is the house, what is the wall made of (is it actually brick?) are there any plug or wall sockets or radiator pipes in line with what you're doing, what type of drill (cordless, ordinary drill or SDS?) and bit are you using? In my experience old walls can be made up of allsorts of different stuff, I had to make about six attachments to a single wall in the last house, I needed about four different types of fixings.

 

[Alec_t]

Use a metal detector to check if it's possibly a hidden pipe.

 

[Notch7]

Hello

Complete novice here so could do with some help. We’re trying to anchor a book case to a brick wall. We’ve managed to drill one hole as deep as we need but the other has stopped abruptly less than half an inch into the wall and won’t go any further. I don’t know whether we’ve hit something we shouldn’t have or just come up against a particularly stubborn bit of brick. If we have hit something we shouldn’t have, is this dangerous? If we haven’t, is the solution just to refill the hole and start another somewhere nearby and hope we don’t hit the same issue?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

So you drilled through the plaster and hit something hard.

TBH if it was something like electrics or plumbing pipe work it probably wouldn’t be that hard to drill through….unless it was a galvanised gas pipe or electrical conduit

Its possible it’s just hard brick or concrete block,- on a really old house it could even be a lump of flint, or some cast in situ concrete

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

@Notch7 agreed, suspect hard block etc/crappy drill but gotta ask ....

 

[thomp1983]

Where are you drilling, if it's near a door opening or window you my have hit the lintel if the fixings for the bookcase are at the top