Unfortunatley yes, the nice thing when they built this place was the concrete they put between the floors, it keeps the noise from above to zero. The Mrs had actually hung a plant hook in the spare bedroom when I was away on a business trip and she said she drilled through concrete right away. (part of the reason why I didn't want to drill into the ceiling was I gave her a hard time about putting holes in the ceiling and now I need to eat a little crow if I do it myself ;) :P )

If your're hanging from the ceiling use a cross brace if your joists are in the wrong place.

Doug

If you can, borrow (or rent) a hammer drill and install some concrete plugs. Noisy and messy, but quick and very solid. Make sure the holes are where you want them. If you're scared of making a mistake ask a friend in construction to help you out, then blame all the mistakes on them.

Will a powerdrill with a mortat bit on it work?

I doubt it, hammer drills are used for concrete because they have a hammering action as well as drilling, which actualy chips the contrete as you go.
You can rent hammer drills from Rona or Home depot for pretty cheap.
You could always try your regular drill though.

A normal drill with a masonry bit will work... But it wont be cutting through like a hot knife through butter.

Andy

I dont know anything about your apartment. But I'm sure you'll watch out for water pipes. We had someone on around our 30th floor drill into the ceiling right into a water pipe and it flood like a hundred units below. It also took out all 3 elevators in the building. There was no elevator service for almost a week. People were ****ed. Dozens of apartments had to replace their drywalls. I think it must have cost hundreds of thousands in repairs. I can't remember who ended up paying for it. :smile:

HAHAH! Trust me, I know the pains of broken water pipes in condos. Boxing day 2005, a guy two floors above me left his patio door open over night, it froze the baseboard heating pipes and they burst. My place and the one above me got messed up :( It was three months and lots of ripping apart and construction before my place was 100% again.



I just had a bit of a brain wave though, I pulled out my stud finder and it seems that there are two studs behind my tank.. I'm not thinking about going to home depot tomorrow and getting 12-16" long shelf bracks and see if I can hang my pendant that way.. I'm thinking I can just add the shelf as well and hang a fan from it to cool the water.

So I decided to get a little crazy today and went looking around home depot.. came back with a pile of stuff and got to work. An hour later I ended up with this mounting system.. let me know what you guys think?

http://members.shaw.ca/gregkubasek/halide.jpg

Looking good. If the wife though pushes for a little less industrial style brackets, at HD they have some used for hanging plant baskets (not shelves).

And that light is a monster.