Anchoring into a travertine tile floor

[chad201008]

I have a customer that is trying to anchor a hand railing into a travertine tile floor that I believe is installed on a concrete floor. Is there an anchor that work better than others? The customer said he would like to use 1/4"-5/16" bolts but I said that was to small for a hand rail. Do I use a blind hole bit rather than a hammer bit? With my luck, all the holes will be next to an edge.

[Alex_Bores]

Use non-coring at medium speed and you should have no problem. (I can shoot you a picture of what helix has)
For a hand rail i wouldn't use anything less than 1/2"
How far down do you plan to go?

[Joe Little]

The ones we have seen , have a metal sleeve that goes into the floor , and then the handrail slides into the sleeve and screws in .
For those you just use a long core it , then use anchor cement ( poorock ) to hold the sleeve in .

[Dan R.]

You should fine using either a non core bit or a core bit, as lom
No as they secure into the concrete substrate.

What you will use will be dictated by the anchor type supplied.

[Dave.Scott]

Marble Institute of America specifications says that stone tile or slab is a veneer only, not structural.
Therefore, the posts above are exactly correct. The bolts need to secure fully into the concrete slab passing through the travertine surface with some space to allow flex in the anchors without affecting the stone tile veneer.

http://www.marble-institute.com/

[Matt Lansing]

Residential or commercial application?

For commercial applications there are required codes for side loading that have to be followed. The 1/4" bolts could be big enough depending on the type and length of bolt, size of the railing flange at the floor, and spacing of the vertical posts.

If the tile was installed correctly it should be possible to just hammer drill it as you will need to get fairly deep into the concrete to have it properly anchored and doing that with a non-coring bit wouldn't be so much fun.