# Ceramic tile removal



## Nutnhoney (Jan 7, 2017)

Now that the storm is going to force us to remodel, the wife wants to stain the floors. In about half the house I have ceramic tile that looks like a brick but is only about 1/2" thick. Can someone recommend a took and or method for removal. Some kind of impact hammer etc.? Thanks


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## JFolm (Apr 22, 2012)

Maybe electric jack hammer with the chisel end or a hammer drill with chisel.


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## RB II (Feb 26, 2009)

If you are going to stain the floors, be very careful about power/pneumatic tools, they will gouge the concrete beneath the tile. Even a heavy chisel/hammer can damage the concrete to the point that you will have to patch it and patches look really bad on stained floors. 
One other point is that the thin set/grout bed beneath the paver bricks will leave a pattern burned into the concrete below also. Likely not going to look good either.

I would recommend that you clean up a 10'x10' or so area by hand and stain it as a mock up of what the entire floor will look like as a finished product.

In my experience, you will have to find some new flooring to install as the staining won't look good, but ymmv.


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## Carp-enter (Jun 18, 2017)

There is some new equipment being used by tile removers that seems to work well. They use a machine to remove tile and another to grind smooth the thinset. I have used a crew in the SA area a few times and it has turned out nice. But not too cheap. As a contractor I'm paying $3 sq/ft.


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## FishofFury (Jun 2, 2015)

I have a buddy that has a business ground zero floors is the name. They do tile removal and grind down the thinset. Its all hooked up to these high powered vaccum so no dust in the house. Look them up or let me know if you are interested. I worked there for a while when i was laid off as well.


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## al_carl (Jan 20, 2012)

If you are still in "Stinky Baytown" I should have a hand held air hammer if you would like to borrow it. I haven't used it in a few years so I'll have to hunt it down but if you've got a compressor to run it you are welcome to use it.


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## al_carl (Jan 20, 2012)

You can stain if you want but I went with an epoxy. It's been 8 years and has held up very well, even with all the dogs.


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## BullyARed (Jun 19, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+remove+ceramic+tile+from+concrete+floor

I believe you can rent the tools at Home Depot.


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## BullyARed (Jun 19, 2010)

BullyARed said:


> http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+remove+ceramic+tile+from+concrete+floor
> 
> I believe you can rent the tools at Home Depot.


BTW, if you have an air compressor, you can buy the air hammer at HF for $10.00 (one comes with a chisel). A two folks chisel is $10.00.

We also plan to remove our slate tiles with this air tool.


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## cubera (Mar 9, 2005)

BullyARed said:


> http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+remove+ceramic+tile+from+concrete+floor
> 
> I believe you can rent the tools at Home Depot.


The've all been rented out.
Guys next door are having to hand chisel up some glue down engineered wood.
They tried to rent a machine at Home Depot, no luck, they tried a small electric jack hammer with a thin blade. No matter how hard they tried, it started popping the concrete up.


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## BrandonH (Oct 15, 2006)

al_carl said:


> You can stain if you want but I went with an epoxy. It's been 8 years and has held up very well, even with all the dogs.


This...i would definitely look into epoxy.


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## GT11 (Jan 1, 2013)

I just had some tile replaced....I paid the installers to remove the old tile and they used a mallet to bust the old tile apart, then swept up the pieces. They then used cold chisels and air chisels to smooth things out. If you plan to stain it, you will have to grind/sand the slab to clean it up and remove all traces of thin set.


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## BullyARed (Jun 19, 2010)

cubera said:


> The've all been rented out.
> Guys next door are having to hand chisel up some glue down engineered wood.
> They tried to rent a machine at Home Depot, no luck, they tried a small electric jack hammer with a thin blade. No matter how hard they tried, it started popping the concrete up.


Check Harbor Freight and may have to order it, not expensive.


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## misbhavn (Nov 19, 2010)

GT11 said:


> I just had some tile replaced....I paid the installers to remove the old tile and they used a mallet to bust the old tile apart, then swept up the pieces. They then used cold chisels and air chisels to smooth things out. If you plan to stain it, you will have to grind/sand the slab to clean it up and remove all traces of thin set.


This. My father owned a flooring company growing up and I have taken up hundreds of thousands of square feet of ceramic tile in my life. Take a hammer and hit the tile in 4 or 5 places and it will be all broken up. Just be careful because pieces of tile will fly everywhere and can break glass. You will need to contain any flying pieces.

As mentioned, a 17 inch floor sander with coarse sand paper will make light work of the thin set, but will make a ton of dust.


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## Ronhauser (Aug 5, 2017)

I acid stained floors in my house about 10 years ago and rented large round sander that you walk behind and it cleaned the concrete nicely. Cleaning the concrete is definitely the hardest part of the whole job


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