Today we’re going to discuss how to drill a hole in a tile, specifically how to drill
a hole in porcelain tile or ceramic tile. We’re also going to share some tips on how
to mount bathroom accessories. This is the Milwaukee Diamond Plus Mini Hole
Saw for drilling through tiles. You can use it for porcelain, ceramic, granite, tile,
glass, marble, slate; you name it. And you want to spray the surface of your tile and
then begin drilling at a 45° and slowly pivot it to a 90° and oscillate the tool back and
forth. We’ll show you how to do this. This is what the mini hole saw looks like.
There’s a slug ejection slot for ejecting the slugs of tile. And those are the little
diamonds on the tip for cutting through tile. So like I said at the beginning, we’re going
to be installing some TR series American Standard bathroom accessories. We’re using a laser
level to do this. It makes it a lot easier. You don’t have to use one, but it is a great
tool. All right, so we’re going to put in this
American Standard toilet paper hanger. Basically off the instructions, it’s 6” from the
center of each one of these plates that you got to mount to the wall. We have tile here,
obviously. A lot of people feel that going right into a grout joint is a better bet.
I’d say that’s not too bad if you have blocking behind here if you planned ahead
of time and actually had some blocking behind here. Otherwise, I would go with going on
the tile itself because really the plug that you install is going to hold better into the
tile and the backer board than just going into a grout joint. If you have wood blocking,
by all means go into the grout joint if you like. If not, I would just try to get on the
tile. Now in general, this bathroom is pretty tight.
Kind of a rule of thumb that I’ve been kind of sticking with is 8” off the top of the
toilet and then wherever room is comfortable in front. But in this situation, 8” is all
the way to the top here, and you wouldn’t be able to get a toilet paper roll in without
hitting your sill here. So we have our laser up. So obviously you
want to make sure that your handles are going to look good. So I’m actually going to want
to go down below the grout joint all the way. I feel like it’s going to look better if
I have it fully on the tile and not on the grout joint. So something like that. So you
just want to keep it far enough away that you have legroom.
Just mark our top to bottom here. Will measure over 6” from the center of that. Your set
screw goes into this indentation, so you’re going to have to point this down. So make
sure that we’re on the laser in the center and mark that this way. So we actually did
it the opposite way here. Start drilling through the tile at a 45°
angle then tilt your drill to a 90°. This is a ¼” bit. And remember to preserve the
bits on the end of that drill bit. You want to dip it into water every 3 to 5 seconds.
So this is ceramic tile. It’s about ¼” thick. It’s not really a hard tile. And
it was easy for us to drill through it with our diamond bit. So again 45° to a 90° to
start drilling through the tile. It’ll take you a few seconds depending on the thickness
of the tile to get this done. So once you have the holes drilled, the next step is to
add plastic plug. We needed four, as you can see here. And we’d lightly tap them into
the ceramic tile using a hammer. You can also use a rubber mallet for this if you’re scared
of breaking that tile. So clean the tile off with a damp sponge.
And then you can add the mounting brackets using the provided screws. Be careful not
to over-tighten the screws because that could break your tile. And then you have a little
set screw on your bathroom accessory that you can tighten down over that bracket. So
it’s really, really simple. We put together this bathroom toilet paper holder, and it
really complemented the small bathroom, as you can see here. And it is a very, very tight
bathroom. The next step for us was to do the exact same
process for a towel bar. Again just drilling at a 45° then at a 90° and taking your time.
You definitely want to take your time with this kind of a project. Tapping those plastic
inserts into the wall. Unscrewing the set screw. And then tightening it down onto the
bracket. So again this towel bar really turned out nice and complemented the style of the
bathroom. By the way, we also have a video on how to install the toilet and this Ravena
sink. This is a different project that we were working
on. The tile was porcelain. Much harder. About 3/8” thick. We took our time doing this.
And you’ll notice that you will not break the tile if you use this method. So we needed
two holes for the bracket. We were installing a shower rod in this modern shower. And that’s
why we needed two holes. This is what that bracket was attaching to—that shower rod
that was going into the glass. Hopefully you got some great tips in today’s
video. If you do have any questions, please let us know. We also have our free guide on
bathroom remodeling, which you can get by clicking right here. That’ll take you over
to Home Repair Tutor where you can get the guide for free.
So that’s it for today. Thanks so much for watching the video. We’ll see you in the
next one. Take care.