Removing ceramic tile

[metaleltr]

We have about 30 square feet-SWAG- of ceramic tile that was installed with thinset over a concrete slab. Due to poor decisions on how much of the room to tile originally, a broken tile, and the fact that this tile was discontinued we now have to remove it to put down new stuff. My question is how hard will it be to remove this stuff? Dad bought a spyder scrapper for the sawzall but at this point I have my doubts. I think it will require an air chisel or an SDS hammer.

 

[wantedabiggergarage]

Can you let water sit on it for a while? (SOAKED) Like your presoaking for mopping it?

Water will cause the tile to pop up from the thinset, and you can tell it has by a hollow sound when you drop a quarter. It will be easy to break the hollow ones and an angle grinder can be used to cut the grout, or chisel it out, use a HF multtool, etc.

 

[metaleltr]

With glazed tiles and sealed grout i don't see that doing much.

 

[bmwpower]

+1 on air chisel.
Get under the tiles and bzzzzz them off.

 

[metaleltr]

Yeah the only issue there is that that the room is about 100ft from the closest air line drop so we would have to borrow a couple extra hoses, or when school gets back in we have means to borrow an SDS hammer

 

[Dakota00]

Rent an electric demolition jack hammer with a 4" flat bit. In 20min you'll have the tiles removed

 

[dcs Inc]

Dakota00, I thought I had invented something when I first did this. I had the rental company take an asphalt blade and sharpen on a 45 degree. Most asphalt blades are sharpened to a center point. Run can run with that thing and tiles are popping like crazy. Wear safety goggles!

 

[Aussie damo]

I did a job for a friend and we cut all grout line with a 4"grinder. Then used a sds jack hammer. Most of the tiles just popped up. As for the glue we hired a concrete wet grinder and used a wet and dry vac to remove slurry.
Messy and time consuming but perfect result.
Good luck.

 

[Jeff]

+1 on air chisel.
Get under the tiles and bzzzzz them off.

I removed tile from a 12x18 back room. I ran a air hose and used the chisel. Took less than an hour...but....

Air chisels make a **** load of dust and flying shards of skin cutting goodness. Make sure the room is masked off from the rest of the house.

Wear full body armor and have at it.

 

[slghmmr88]

Rent an electric demolition jack hammer with a 4" flat bit. In 20min you'll have the tiles removed

This^^^^^
Done it many times, keep a good edge on the bit and it will remove most of the thinset from the concrete (angle of bit to concrete not too steep). the largest area I ever did at once was 380 square feet, took about 4 hours including standing up occasionally to get circulation back in my feet.

 

[metaleltr]

I think we are going to see how much more air hose we will need and pop it up with a 2in blade in the air hammer.

 

[coolreed]

AIR Chisels work great of you can pick up a heavy scraping tool at HD.
After youget all the tile up and scraped well. Grab a belt sander with a coarse grit and get rid of any thin set residue.

That's how we do it at the 'Lazy J'.

One more thing,...wear safety goggles.

 

[metaleltr]

Yeah, that a first when power tools are involved.

 

[Fuego]

This^^^^^
Done it many times, keep a good edge on the bit and it will remove most of the thinset from the concrete (angle of bit to concrete not too steep). the largest area I ever did at once was 380 square feet, took about 4 hours including standing up occasionally to get circulation back in my feet.

^+1. I removed ~ 1000 sq ft of ceramic tile from a house we purchased last year, plus another 300 sq fr of cheap wood floor using an electric (jackhammer) with a 4" blade. It's a good thing we hadn't moved in yet as it makes a huge mess. The shards are extremely sharp so be careful. Whatever you do, mask off the room as best you can and take up the baseboards before you start or you'll end up replacing all of them. Your project is much smaller so you probably won't have claw finger hands when you finish like I did after two 16 hour days - I'll never do that again! Make sure you have a good angle grinder and file handy as keeping the 4"-6" wide blade sharp makes a BIG difference. I rented all I needed at Sunbelt Rentals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[1ownerT]

Ran into an issue on a Department store remodel one time, all conventional methods were too slow and the results were very unsatisfactory. We ended up with a "weed burner" torch and heated the tiles, they popped right up.
Depending on the thin-set used, a floor grinder may be needed to remove what is left.

 

[slickgt1]

Rent an electric demolition jack hammer with a 4" flat bit. In 20min you'll have the tiles removed

+2. I sometimes have to do demo. Every time, I just pick this up, and destroy the tiles, and thinset in one go. Easy. Do this. Bigger is better by the way. Most will pop up solid from the force, just angle it at the thinset, that's the area you should really attack.