I'm drilling several 2.5cm deep holes (all horizontally about half a meter from the roof) to install some large IKEA Pax cabinets into an internal single-brick wall. I'm drilling into a wall with a small masonry drill bit to make pilot holes before working up to bigger bits.
I drill about 1.5cm in to each brick with ease, and then I feel like it doesn't go through any more. I try push hard and try using the hammer function, but it doesn't move.
I've checked the house plans and photos of the wall, there shouldn't be any pipes or cables in the wall. All pipes and cables appeared to be run vertically during construction. I wouldn't think there's a horizontally running cable or pipe. Most of the information online is in regards to drilling into drywall with suggestions of hitting metal plates, however, I didn't notice anything like that during construction, and I presume that's regarding drywall construction. The cables I noticed during construction run vertically up from power points via lines drilled into the brick itself (not conduit).
Only 1 of about 10 of the holes were successful (unless I got "lucky" and drilled into mortar instead of brick?)
I'm nervous to dry to drill further. In-case I hit something I shouldn't, even though all the above tells me that there shouldn't be anything there.
Am I just hitting the other side of the brick inside the air pockets of the bricks? Certainly it shouldn't be harder to drill into the center of the brick than the face of the brick...or is it?
This is a new house in Australia. I believe the bricks are a single layer like the below:
Photo of the wall during construction wall looks like this:
From the floor plan:
From the electrical plan: