Unfortunately, a recent home improvement didn't go as well as expected.

Act 1: During his attempt to mount a hand-shower bracket onto the wall, the plumber shattered a one-foot square tile.

Act 2: Exit the plumber and enter the tile contractor, who made light work of the tile repair.

Act 3: Tension increases as events unfold. It is discovered that the inconvenience and cost associated with the broken tile repair is not the entire problem -- the showerhead leaks as well. Fortunately, 15 minutes' worth of careful manipulation and a bit of Teflon tape solves the showerhead leak problem.

Act 4: How to install the hand-shower bracket without again damaging the tile.

With the showerhead leak fixed and the plumber somewhere else, we decided to tackle the installation of the hand shower mounting bracket ourselves. We had to think of a way to somehow reduce the possibility of damaging another tile.

The hand shower mounting bracket, as it turns out, is designed to be installed with either a single wood screw or a large molly bolt (a quarter-inch by 4-inches in this case). Not knowing what existed behind the ceramic tile, we decide to drill an inspection hole. We knew that if there was wood backing we could use a much smaller hole.

Since the tile was porcelain (a very hard tile and very difficult to drill), a smaller hole meant an easier task. The plumber had cracked the tile because he had tried to drill a large half-inch hole (so that a toggle screw would fit). Big mistake! The large bit that the plumber used, the hard porcelain tile and the pressure exerted to get the drill to cut; combined to cause a major (and expensive) crack.

It was apparent that the half-inch bit was not going to work. We started with an eighth-inch masonry bit instead. About three minutes passed and we went from tile to mortar to a solid piece of wood. How lucky can you get? Anyway, we were able to drill our inspection hole and then follow up by using it as a mounting hole as well. Had the plumber started with a smaller hole he may have succeeded as well.

After filling the hole, we drilled with silicone caulk. We mounted the base for the hand shower using a stainless wood screw and went on to enjoy the rest of the day knowing that we had done it all without a bit of damage to the shower wall.

So, you ask, what would we have done if we had not found wood and needed to drill a full size half-inch hole? We would have done what we planned all along. We would have stair-stepped the drilling process. Yep, we would have increased the size of our drill bits an eighth of an inch at a time drilling a slightly larger hole with each bit until we reached the desired half-inch hole size.

Drilling brittle material can easily backfire. The trick, as we just mentioned, is to take as little material at a time as you can. Where we used drill size increments of an eighth of an inch, one could easily use sixteenth-inch increments just as well. Slightly more time would be needed (as well as drill bits), but the chance of cracking would be even less. No, the bits don't flop around in the smaller hole. And yes, there is far less pressure required to get the hole drilled when incremental drilling is being performed.

Plexiglas is another material that can easily crack when being drilled. During a recent project, we tried drilling a quarter-inch hole without using the process just described and we shattered the Plexiglas. Fortunately for us, the Plexiglas was a lot less expensive to replace than the shower tile that the plumber had to pay for.

We went back for a second try at the Plexiglas using the incremental drilling process and everything worked out great. We achieved the hole size we needed and without any cracking.

It probably wouldnt hurt to use this technique whenever you aren't sure how brittle your material is. With two different "material splitting" instances occurring within only days of each other, we have learned to make incremental drilling a habit instead of a special event.

And, that's all there is to it.