Floor Tiles Removal

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burger1979

Registered User
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Hi folks,

I am looking to put in wooden floors in my house (downstairs in the hall, kitchen, and office). First of all I have to remove the floor tiles that are down at the moment. They are, I think a Chinese Slate type of tile, laid directly onto concrete. I was having a go at removing some of them last night in the office in the corner but they are not the easiest to get up and the tiles chips quite a bit. I was using just a hammer and chisel, so just looking to see if anyone has any tips/hints to get them up a bit quicker? Dont want to go down the route of getting a jack hammer or anything that strong that may damage the concrete flooring underneath as this will be the base for the new floor.

thanks,

burger
 
You can get a large hand held "jack hammer" that has a chunky chisel attachment from your local hire shop. It is very tiring work.

Place the blade at the bottom edge of any tile and it will quickly crack and lift them. It will take much longer to take back the adhesive to a flat concrete level, but the same tool will do it.

wear safety goggles
 
Can you put the wooden floor over the tiles?? I could be wrong but I'm sure I heard someone say before that they done this. I know there could be issues with plinths and so on but if you've a large area to remove it is going to be back breaking, dusty and messy work.
 
Just redid our hall, I spent three days removing most of them with hammer and chisel, husband spent less than half hour removing rest with the hand held gadget above, tiler said if u angle it at the tile rather than the concrete floor no chance of damage (however the adhesive has to be chipped at by hand). Terrible messy job, skirting and saddle boards had to be replaced also. Great time to repaint if needed after tiling done and before timber work.

ull def need googles and a garden kneeling mat.
 
Thanks for the replies folks.

Sue Ellen - is there anything Google doesnt know, we are putting down wooden flooring so going to take the tiles up.

Fraggle - got gloves and glasses for the job, i will look into that jack hammer and see if i can rent one for it. If it makes it anyway easier then it will be worth it.

Tired Paul - the tops of the tiles are uneven, its a natural finish to them so we would need to apply a thick underlay to iron out/cover up the differences in tiles.

Sandels - you are right, we are changing the floors, skirting, doors and architraves and re-painting walls so the whole downstairs is going to get a new look. We feel that if we are going to do it that we do it all in one go and do it right and be happy with it rather than do it bit by bit.
 
burger1979 said:
Thanks for the replies folks.

Sue Ellen - is there anything Google doesnt know, we are putting down wooden flooring so going to take the tiles up.
Click to expand...

As others have said also if the tiles are in any way even and securely fitted you may get away with just tiling over them. You mention that the tops of the tiles are uneven but thick underlay may cover this up. We did it in the past and it worked out ok. Removing tiles is a nightmare in some situations.
 
I hired a kango drill from Sam Hire for 30 euro, with a chisel head.

If you hammer away at the adhesive, sometimes the entire floor tile would come away in one piece.

However, many broke up, though not really into small chips.

Typically, you would have to drill again to get the adhesive up.

I was relaying tiles, so a liquid screed (?) was poured to level the floors afterwards.

Backbreaking.
 
These tiles will be very difficult to get up.
It will be back breaking even with the proper tools (small kango hammer with 3"/4" flat head).
Because they are a natural stone tile they will almost certainly shatter.
But it looks like it will just have to be done.

Laying the wooden flooring on top of the the existing tiles will raise the floor level which will cause issues with doors etc.
This is the way I would go if the higher floor level wasn't an issue.

If you do lift the tiles, use a levelling compound on the floor and lay the wood as normal

Good Luck!
 
Just to add some balance.... I took up stone (marble) tiles. The tiles would crack and split, sometimes into large pieces, sometimes small pieces, but it would only take 1-2 minutes to take up a tile.

I then had to repeat the proceedure to take up the adhesive. I rarely damaged the concrete underneath, but this was back breaking work.

There was an odd time that I gouged a bit deep into the floor but as I was relaying tiles I just put an extra bit of adhesive in that spot. There was never any question of having to use leveling compound etc.
 
We had bought two bags of levelling compound as requested by tiler as he didnt know how level the concrete would be. He didnt use it so we just bought it back. the floor level did change as one travels down the hall and so we had to put in half saddle boards, luckily no doors had to be planed. If you do need half saddle boards make sure your tiler cut a straight line in the tiles at an appropriate place between the door frame, one bedroom he left the line to far in for some strange reason and the tiles had cut back which was another messy job involving water.
 
The OP is taking up tiles and laying wooden flooring.

In all likelihood the tiles will be lifted.
If relaying new tiles you would get away without using levelling compound as the adhesive could make everthing level.
However, as it is wooden flooring that is being laid a level sub-floor is required.
Therefore, it is 99.9% probable that levelling compound will need to be used prior to wooden floor laying.
 
Hi, thanks for the recent replies, but can someone tell me what is 'levelling compound'??
gocall01 - why would a subfloor be required? If we were to lay a thick underlay and then the wooden flooring would that not work?
you will have to forgive my ignorance but never done this before and have not got a clue about sub-floors/screeds etc. etc.
 
burger1979 said:
Hi, thanks for the recent replies, but can someone tell me what is 'levelling compound'??
gocall01 - why would a subfloor be required? If we were to lay a thick underlay and then the wooden flooring would that not work?
you will have to forgive my ignorance but never done this before and have not got a clue about sub-floors/screeds etc. etc.
Click to expand...

Hi burger,

The sub-floor is just the underlying surface that the new materials are to be laid on.
When you lift the current tiles it will be (in my opinion) very difficult to get the underlying floor to a smooth enough finish to lay wooden flooring.
You may get lucky with respect to this but I'd doubt it.
The floor will probably have a certain amount of the current tile adhesive left on it not matter how much time you actually put into removing it.

Levelling compound comes in a bagged cement/powder format which is then mixed with water and poured and floated to a level fit for purpose.
Once dried (this may take a few days depending on the thickness of the layer applied) the new floor can be laid.

Hope this anwers your questions
Good Luck,
gocall01.
 
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