Removing Old Bathorom Floor Tile

Remove the mortar from the underlayment by hammering.

Removing old bathorom floor tile.

In my case i wound up with a bloody calf. Pry up the sections with a pry bar. Strike the face of stubborn tiles to break them up for easier removal. And even if your removal is perfect tile will chip and send little bits flying like in parts of the room that might also contain an eye or two.

One of the first tools that you are going to want to purchase for tile removal purposes is a floor scraper. These are also often referred to as bully tools. Remove the tiles with a flat pry bar placing the edge low against the side of the tile and striking the base of the knife with a hammer. If you don t know what s under your ceramic floor tile you ll have to do some detective work to find out whether it s plywood cement backerboard or a thick bed of mortar.

After you have chipped away at the tile and mortar cut the old subfloor into small sections with a circular saw equipped with a carbide blade. If you re removing tile flooring from your bathroom take out the toilet and any pedestal sinks and disconnect all the water pipes or drains that go through the floor. Hammer on a 2 to 3 foot square section of the floor to smash up the remaining mortar and then use the floor scraper to scrape the broken pieces of mortar off the underlayment. Using your screw gun remove any screws that might attach the underlayment to the floor.

Remove the underlayment once finished with the tile remove the tile underlayment if it is deteriorating. Work the chisel under the tiles forcing them loose. Wear safety glasses gloves pants and a long sleeve shirt since hammering the tile sends sharp shards flying. Periodically scrape adhesive off the exposed floor with a putty knife or a floor scraper.

An electric chisel is another option. Pry up the edges of the underlayment with the roofing rake and flat shovel. You are going to use this tool to scrape the floor and help you to pull up the tile. If the old tile was laid on underlayment cut through the underlayment and mortar but not the subfloor.

The next step is to prime the floor with a high adhesive oil or shellac based primer. Hitting anything with a hammer in general tends to be noisy and tile and grout in particular is very loud. If this doesn t get most of the mortar up it s probably going to be easier to replace the underlayment. This is a frequently asked question we get from prospective customers and those researchi.

Oxygen bleach again comes to the rescue because it cleans tile as well as it does grout.