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HOW TO REMOVE TILE FLOORING YOURSELF {WITH TIPS AND TRICKS}

Sledge Hammers

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A small hand-held sledge hammer worked the very best. I personally liked the 4 pound one. We had several different sizes from 3 pounds to 12 pounds, and we hardly swung our huge one. When we did, it just didn’t work as well as the small ones. I’ll talk about the technique of hammering in just a minute. Maybe it’s because I am not as strong as Cody Sattler.

Floor Scraper

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This scraper works great for smoothing the floors after the thin set has been removed. We also used this when removing the carpet, so it’s a good investment if you are remodeling.

A flat-headed shovel AKA Square Nose Shovel

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We used this to shovel the shards of tile into the garbage can.

Shop-Vac

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A shop vac is essential. You will be floored at the amount of dust and debris that your project will cause. The vac is a life saver.

Heavy Duty Demo Bags

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Other items you ABSOLUTELY need:

{No ifs, ands, or buts.  I learned the hard way about these}

Bandaids {Yep, I’m going there. If you are a Mom, you know that Bandaids walk away quickly and you cannot risk it. You need at least 25. We even cut our hands while wearing our gloves!}
Knee Pads {These are crucial}
Protective Glasses {to save you from a shard of tile going straight into your cornea}
Long-sleeve Shirts
Closed-toed Shoes { I thought flip flops were a great short-cut at one point. Bad idea.}
Long pants
A good pair of Heavy-duty Gloves
Dust Pan and Broom
Old Sheets
Dust Masks

Now that you know what items you need, let’s talk about the removal process.

Step 1: Cover everything that you care about in your house with sheets and un-decorate everything in the close vecinity. I was excited. I didn’t take the books off the shelves and the sink had dishes in it.  I have never experienced dust like this, folks. It’s intense. I’m not sure our house will ever recover. We have dust in every. nook. and. cranny. Our air conditioner sucked it up through our return air vent and spread it to every room in the house. Even my upstairs bedrooms are now covered in a thick white coat of dust.

Step 2: Hit the tile with a sledge hammer at a slight angle. You will find the sweet spot by experimenting, but once you find it you will speed through this process. My 3-year-old thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

I learned that the four pound sledge hammer was the best one for my strength. It may differ for you. A normal hammer worked too, but it didn’t work that well.

TIP: The first night of tile removal taught me a ton of lessons. I was wearing cut off capri-length sweats and a short sleeved shirt and flip-flops. Yep. I’m smart. Within five minutes I learned how sharp the tile is. I stopped to put on shoes. Then, five minutes later my legs had 5 bleeding nicks. I stopped to put on pants. You get the drill, I’m kinda slow sometimes, but I promise you need to cover yourself. Tile can be as sharp as a razor blade. I didn’t know that before, and now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

TIP: In the last 5 minutes of tile removal, we found that the hammer drill worked GREAT to get the tile out too.

How to remove ceramic tile yourself

Prepare yourself for a Mess with a capital M.

tile-removal-instructions

 

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Step 3: Remove the tile from the edges of the room. Since it’s impossible to hit the tile close enough to the cabinets and along the wall with a sledge hammer, you need another technique for those areas. We found that the hammer drill worked better than any other tool. We tried using an angle grinder, but the hammer drill worked waaaay better.

TIP: The tile comes out much faster along the baseboards if you remove the baseboards first.

how to cut tile edges

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Step 4: Clean up your broken tile with your flat headed shovel. It works great to shovel them into the garbage. We used our rolling garbage can or the construction bags for this.

TIP: Be super careful. I sliced my fingers several times during this process. I was even wearing gloves and the tile sliced right through the leather and cut my finger.

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The kids loved this part.

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Sweep up all the tile and grout with the dust pan and broom, but don’t spend too much time sweeping. It’s a waste of time. As soon as you start scrapping off the thin set, the amount of dust will multiply by one million.

See how foggy this picture looks, it was taken after the dust settled all night, and there was still dust in the air.

tile-demolition

 

Step 5: Use your hammer drill/chisel to scrape off the thin set. After you have removed the tile, the real work begins. This is the part that I was 100% not ready for, but listen up, you can do it. It’s not that bad and it goes fairly fast once you have the right tool.

Tip: Wear a mask. It will protect your lungs from the dust. I forgot a few times, and I coughed a lot after that.

The thin-set will look like this, and in order to lay down new flooring, you need to scrape it until it’s smooth.

how to remove thin set during tile demolition

To do this, use your hammer drill with the tile chisel and set it to pulse.

I had to make 2 passes on almost every part to get the thin set off. I’m not sure if all thin set is the same, but ours was super thick and hard.

Step 6: Make one last pass with the hammer drill and remove any thin set that is sticking up along the floor.

Step 7: Smooth the floor with the floor scraper. 

Even after several passes with hammer drill, the concrete will still have some thin set. You don’t need to get every bit of it off, but it needs to be pretty smooth.

Flooring Project (123 of 153)

After you have done the scraping, you are done with the hardest part of the entire process.
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kitchen without tile 1

A few of my friends and family have asked me if I would do it again myself. I think it’s too soon to answer that question. It’s kind of like child-birth. You can’t ask a mom if she’s going to have another baby right after giving birth. 🙂

In all honesty, I’m not sure if I would do the thin set scraping myself if I had the funds to hire someone. I’m trying to forget how much work it was.

We ripped out the dingy old carpet too, and I’ll post about those details soon. I’ve hated the crappy carpet in my house for years, and when we moved into my house it was a beige cave.

The wood flooring that we chose is absolutely beautiful. It’s changing the entire look of our house for the better!

Follow along in real time on Instagram.

xoxo,

Brooke

Look at the kitchen after! It’s a dream come true!