Otherwise known as drilling upside down, inverted drilling is usually used because access from above is either prohibited or the holes required only need to be on the underside of the concrete and drilled part way through.
In these situations the diamond drilling rig is generally vacuumed or anchored to the underside of the concrete or backed propped from the slab below. This enables the drill motor to run freely on the drill mast so that the operator can work comfortably against gravity turning the handle to apply pressure through the handle on to the drill head so that inverted drilling process can commence.
In some situations, especially when using a small diameter drill, the hole will be positioned where reinforcement bars are present within the concrete structure. This means that water is required to cool the diamond segments throughout the inverted diamond drilling process. Running water and drilling upside down has its challenges as the water falls from the drill head back down onto the drill and the operating engineer beneath therefore this has to be controlled.
The engineer will adopt two methods when considering an inverted diamond drilling job. Firstly they will choose a hydraulic drill as this can work freely even if submersed in water. Secondly they will fit a water bund or (slurper ring) directly over the hole so that any slurry based water is collected at source and collected into a wet vacuum attached to the device.
Inverted diamond drilling can be used for fixing brackets or anchor points to take loads for utility services or similar such devices that need to be hung from the ceiling.
