Image: The process of lifting tiles from the floor
Removing floor tile is an essential task for any home renovation when needing to replace your flooring, kitchen or bathroom renovation and strip out. Here at All Stripped, we have developed innovative methods of dust free tile removal. In this blog, we will outline our process of removing the tiles and grinding the glue from the subflooring. Tile removal is a hard and labour-intensive process, All Stripped has the best industrial equipment and systems for making removing ceramic, slate and terracotta tile, clean and efficient.
Hammer & bolster are basic tools that can be used to remove small amounts of tile, but this method is very slow and hard, using a small hand-held jackhammer makes tile removal easier, but then you are left with the tile glue to remove which is very dusty and time-consuming. A concrete grinder with a vacuum attached is the best method for glue removal.
All Stripped uses large electric jackhammers with specially engineered blades and dust shrouds attached for tile removal. We then use various-sized concrete grinders with vacuums attached to remove tile adhesive.
Ceramic or porcelain tiles laid on concrete glue can be easy to remove if the tiles “pop” off the glue or are already “drummy”. Tiles laid on black rubber glue are much harder to remove as tiles only chip away in small pieces.
Either way, you are always left with the tile adhesive to remove, grey concrete glue or black rubber glue, ranging in thickness from 3-10mm in some cases. You can try to use a floor scraper or jackhammer to remove this glue, however a very dusty process with dangerous silica dust. The best way is to use a concrete diamond grinder with a vacuum attached to suck up all the dust and tile glue as you go. This leaves a clean smooth floor, often ready to re-lay your new flooring.
The professional way to remove floor tiles involves using power tools like jackhammers and diamond grinders. These tools make the job significantly faster and easier. All Stripped has high-powered machinery for floor stripping and dust removal. Any remaining tile glue is removed using concrete grinders with powerful vacuums attached.
All Stripped aims to complete every job with minimal airborne dust, suppressing and removing dust from our work with powerful vacuum systems. All of our machinery has custom-built attachments to remove dust, so as dust is produced by our machines in the tile and glue removal process, the harmful silica dust is vacuumed up nearly instantly. The result is an almost completely dust-free work site with no airborne dust left to spread throughout the rest of your home.
Sufficient safety gear is also needed for both tile removal and adhesive stripping. This includes dust masks, ear muffs, gloves and safety glasses.
Floor tiles made of different materials all use similar methods for their removal, ceramic and porcelain tiles are thin up to 10mm and generally easier to remove than thicker slate and terracotta tiles 20-50mm.
Some tiles are laid on a sand and cement screed, 30-50mm thick, which makes removal harder, longer and normally a lot more dust, if you are not using our dust-free system.
Tiles can also be laid on cement sheeting which can be glued and nailed to timber flooring.
All types of flooring require a similar method to remove, very labour-intensive, with lots of rubble and dust produced.
All Stripped innovative dust-free tile removal method allows the process of removing tiles of any material to be virtually dust-free.
We have stripped thousands of tiled floors and can ensure the clean and safe removal of floor tile of any material. If you have further enquiries about how to remove floor tiles and our process, contact us today.