What Drill Bit Do I Need for Concrete and Brick Walls

A masonry bit — carbide tipped, used in hammer mode — and sized to the plug rather than to the screw. That is the whole answer to what drill bit do i need for concrete, brick or block, and almost every failed hole comes from getting the second half wrong.

Most light wall pieces come with a red or brown nylon plug. The plug is stamped with its size. The bit matches that number, not the screw that goes into it.

Everything below assumes a light decorative piece. The Houseland fluted panel is a cord-free battery design with no transformer to support, so the fixing only has to hold the panel itself.

What drill bit do i need for concrete, brick and block

All three want the same family of bit: a masonry bit with a brazed carbide tip. Wood and metal bits will not survive contact with aggregate — they go blunt within a few seconds and then burnish the hole instead of cutting it.

That last row catches people out. Aerated block is soft, and hammering it blows out a crater far wider than the bit. Turn hammer mode off and let the bit cut.

Size the bit to the plug, not the screw

This is the single most common mistake, and it is not recoverable once made.

A nylon wall plug works by being compressed into a hole slightly smaller than it wants to be. The screw expands it, the plug grips the masonry. Drill the hole to the screw diameter instead and the plug either will not enter, or spins uselessly in a hole with nothing to push against.

So: read the number moulded onto the plug, or printed on the packet, and use a bit of exactly that size. A 5/16 in (8 mm) plug takes a 5/16 in bit. Not the next size up because it was already in the drill.

If you have already drilled oversize, do not try to shim it. Move across an inch or two and drill again, then fill the first hole. A plug in a loose hole feels solid on the day and lets go a month later.

Drill depth, and why the plug should sit below the surface

Drill deeper than the plug is long — roughly a plug length plus a quarter of an inch. The extra space takes the dust the bit could not clear, which otherwise packs into the bottom and stops the plug going fully home.

Wrap a strip of tape around the bit at your target depth so you can see when to stop. Most bits have no depth marking, and going too deep in brick risks punching through the face into the cavity behind.

Set the plug so its rim finishes flush with, or a hair below, the wall surface. A plug standing proud holds the fixing off the wall and the piece hangs with a visible gap along one edge.

Dust also tells you what you are drilling into. Bright orange-red powder is fired clay brick. Grey grit with visible stone in it is concrete or dense block. Fine pale dust that comes out almost like flour is usually aerated block or old lime mortar, and that is your cue to switch the hammer off before the hole gets away from you. It costs nothing to glance at the pile on the floor after the first hole and adjust for the rest.

Brick face or mortar joint?

Both work, and they fail differently.

The brick face is stronger in most modern walls and is the default for anything with real weight. The risk is that a hard engineering brick blunts a cheap bit, and that a badly placed hole can crack a face that will then be visible forever.

The mortar joint is softer, faster to drill, and much easier to make good later — raking out and repointing a joint is a normal repair, while a chipped brick face is not. Older lime mortar is softer still and will not hold much, so test it: if the bit sinks with almost no pressure, use the brick.

For a light piece, the joint is usually the smarter choice. You are trading a little grip you do not need for a repair you can actually undo, which matters if you rent.

From the shop

LED Wall Art with Shelf and Bud Vase, Fluted Sandstone Backlit Panel

A 59.1 x 13 in fluted capsule panel: a raised cream fluted front over a hand-applied sandstone rear in rust, tan or cream, with a slim wood ledge and a clear glass bud vase. Concealed warm-white LED on AA batteries, remote controlled, no cord.

View the fluted sandstone panel — 3 sizes & current price

The sequence, start to finish

1. Check what is behind the wall. A detector over the whole drilling area, and think about what is on the other side — kitchens and bathrooms put pipework in outside walls.
2. Mark the hole. Cross of tape over the mark stops the bit wandering and catches most of the dust.
3. Start slowly with no hammer, just to establish the hole, then switch hammer on.
4. Keep the drill square to the wall. An angled hole makes the plug sit crooked and the screw pull sideways.
5. Pull the bit out and back in a few times while drilling, to clear dust.
6. Blow or vacuum the hole out. Dust left in the hole is why a plug stops half an inch short.
7. Tap the plug in flush. It should need light taps, not a hammer swing.
8. Drive the screw until the fixing is firm. Stop there — over-driving strips the plug and you feel it go soft.

Do you need a hammer drill or an SDS?

For brick and mortar, an ordinary combi drill with hammer mode is enough. Cheap ones are slow but they get there.

For poured concrete and dense engineering block, a hammer drill will struggle badly and you will feel it: lots of noise, very little progress, a bit that comes out hot and dull. That is the point to borrow or hire an SDS. An SDS drives the bit with a piston rather than by vibrating the whole chuck, and it turns a ten-minute fight into about twenty seconds.

Two small things that matter more than the drill: use a sharp bit, and let the tool do the work. Leaning hard on a blunt bit generates heat rather than cutting, and heat is what kills the carbide.

Wear eye protection. Masonry chips leave at speed and they do not care that it was only four holes.

One more thing worth knowing before you start: masonry walls are also the walls where cable routing gets decided. Chasing a channel into brick for a cord is a plaster-and-repaint job rather than a drilling job, which is why a battery piece is so much easier here than a plug-in one. If you do want the cord gone, the in-wall route sets out what it actually involves.

What this means for a light wall piece

The Houseland fluted panel is 59.1 in wide and battery powered, so there is no adapter to carry and no cord to route. The fixings are only holding a light textured panel, which is why plugs in mortar joints are a perfectly sound choice here even though they would not be for a loaded shelf.

If the piece is going on plasterboard instead, none of the above applies — that is a different anchor entirely, and what a wall fixing actually holds covers the numbers for hollow walls.

What I would do on a masonry wall: buy one good bit rather than a set of bad ones, drill the mortar joints, and blow the dust out before the plug goes in. Those three things fix most of what goes wrong.