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Tom Winship
07-30-2012, 8:47 AM
Has anyone ever had tile replaced in their home? We have a lot of cracked tile and have decided to replace it this fall. How messy is all the removal? Lot's of dust?

Chris Kennedy
07-30-2012, 9:02 AM
When I was a kid, my dad re-tiled one entire wing of the house. Removing the tile was easy and not too dirty, but removing the mastic was nasty and dusty.

Cheers,

Chris

Joe Kieve
07-30-2012, 9:41 AM
Are you talking ceramic or vinyl composition? Both can be messy. Be aware that if it's VCT, the tile or the mastic could contain asbestos. Best to have it tested before jumping in and creating a lot of dust.
Just my 2 cents.

Joe

Kevin Bourque
07-30-2012, 11:22 AM
I'm a building contractor and I do lots of tile work.Are you talking about repairing just the damaged tiles or redoing the whole job?

Removing tile doesn't create that much dust, it's mostly just noisy.
Individual tiles can be removed easily with an oscillating cutting tool and a chisel.
To remove all the tile requires a demolition hammer.

Tim Boger
07-30-2012, 12:10 PM
Has anyone ever had tile replaced in their home? We have a lot of cracked tile and have decided to replace it this fall. How messy is all the removal? Lot's of dust?

Seems the pertinent question is, what is the sub-floor?

Both wood and concrete sub-floors will present different challenges .... tile stuck to concrete can be real tough to get off and removing the remaining thin set from the floor can be almost impossible.

Wood sub-floors on the other hand typically tend to release the thin set a bit easier, challenge is using a scraper on a wood sub-floor can be tough as the blade often tries to dig into the wood.

It only really becomes dusty if a grinder is used to either cut grout joints for single tile replacements or when attempting to grind the residual thin set off the sub-floor be it concrete or wood.

Unless the existing material is completely released and requires little more than sliding a bar under it and picking up the pieces I would hire a tile guy and let him do the job.

Tim

Tom Winship
07-30-2012, 1:39 PM
Let me clarify a few things. First, I'm hiring it done. It is ceramic tile over a concrete slab. The whole floor is going to have to be replaced due to the number of cracked tiles (probably cracked slab also due o last summers extreme drought). Hope that clears up any questions.

Greg Portland
07-30-2012, 1:40 PM
Seems the pertinent question is, what is the sub-floor?
+1. It sounds like you want to fix the sub floor & base layer once you've stripped off the tile. This may alter the overall height of your floor.

Yes, tile removal is very dusty; be sure to seal off the room.

Tim Boger
07-30-2012, 1:43 PM
Let me clarify a few things. First, I'm hiring it done. It is ceramic tile over a concrete slab. The whole floor is going to have to be replaced due to the number of cracked tiles (probably cracked slab also due o last summers extreme drought). Hope that clears up any questions.

Make sure the contractor address's any slab cracks correctly, typically a fracture membrane spans the crack and is adhered to the floor on either side .... techniques / materials may have changed since my days as a tile setter but I assure you that simply filling the crack with mortar and tiling over it is guaranteed to fail again.

Matt Meiser
07-30-2012, 2:22 PM
We just had linoleum and engineered hardwood replaced with an engineered tile product. As in they just finished the job an hour ago. Even removing those products which were glued to a stapled and construction adhesive attached underlayment were quite dusty. All the baseboard moldings had to be removed. Its downright scary how much dust, dog hair, etc was hidden behind them after 21 years.

Tim Boger
07-30-2012, 3:09 PM
Has anyone ever had tile replaced in their home? We have a lot of cracked tile and have decided to replace it this fall. How messy is all the removal? Lot's of dust?

Come to think of it, there are new "Floating Ceramic Tile" floors available these days. I've never worked with it nor seen it installed but that would eliminate the risk caused by a cracked / displaced slab.

Might be worth looking into if the condition of the sub-floor demands it.

Tim

Jason Roehl
07-30-2012, 3:35 PM
If the area to be re-tiled is quite large, you should use a decoupling membrane, like the Schluter Ditra mat, and some expansion joints (basically caulk in the place of a few grout lines--can be done in conjunction with some accent tile to make the caulk less obvious). The mat will allow for differential movement of the substrate and the tile, and the expansion joints keep the movement from adding up.

Kevin Bourque
07-30-2012, 3:58 PM
If the area to be re-tiled is quite large, you should use a decoupling membrane, like the Schluter Ditra mat, and some expansion joints (basically caulk in the place of a few grout lines--can be done in conjunction with some accent tile to make the caulk less obvious). The mat will allow for differential movement of the substrate and the tile, and the expansion joints keep the movement from adding up.

I just finished a job using the Schluter-Ditra membrane. If you are tiling over concrete its the way to go.