just a question on removing old floor tiles and retiling in the bathroom.

the house is over 20 years old and it looks like the original adhesive used for the tiles was some sort of concrete adhesive. the floor tiles now have some fine cracks through them presumably from the lack of flexibility in the concrete adhesive.

my plan is to remove these tiles and retile. do you have to remove the concrete adhesive, or can you just remove the tiles from on top of the adhesive and retile over this? will there be any issues retiling over the previous concrete adhesive?

thanks
for your help

Hi there

Firstly, to forums.

The best thing you can do is to remove all the old tiles, and the old adhesive and grout as leaving this behind will not give you a decent flat surface to work with. Scrape as much of everything off as you can, and if there's still some stubborn adhesive left, try getting a wire brush attachment for a power drill and carefully sand off any excess being careful not to dig too deep and damage your floorboards

Once you've cleared the floor of all the old stuff, you need to find out how thick your floor boards are underneath because if you tile on to flimsy floorboards, you're likely to see your new tiles crack and the adhesive and grout break up.

There are specialist boards you can buy from places like Tile Giant that can be laid over your existing floor boards that you can tile onto. If you go for this option though, make sure the new board you put down is securely screwed to the floorboards beneath (try and screw into the joists to avoid pipework etc), preferably every 30cm or less if you can successfully find places for the screws to go!

Flexible adhesives and grouts are probably the best for a bathroom floor and if you have a Tile Giant store near you, pop in and speak to the people that work there, and they can advise you what is the best adhesive and grout to be using.

If you register with us (it's free) we can respond to your questions quicker.

Thanks
GRR

well answered Liz.

just some more information i didn't include to begin with. the concrete adhesive appears to be about 1 inch thick and the subfloor is a concrete slab.

i have taken all the tiles up now and am left with a flat surface, which is the top of the concrete adhesive with some minor bumps in it where the air chisel went too deep. my intention is to use some floor leveling compound to fix these minor bumps.

my question is, will the new tiles adhere appropriately to the previous concrete adhesive, or should i remove the adhesive and start bare on the concrete slab surface.

Your concrete adhesive sounds like a screed layer on top of your concrete base/slab..are you sure you're not getting your terminology mixed up..a solid floor is normally made up of hardcore on top of the soil, layer of sand, damp proof membrane, layer of insulation, layer of concrete and finally, a layer of screed..

Assuming it is a layer of screed, you should prime the screed and then apply tile adhesive and tiles..if the minor bumps are minor, the tile adhesive will be sufficient to fill them...

right then, you've got a concrete floor that has been tiled, and you've removed the existing tiles?.adhesive (presumably cemetitious) is still adhering to tiles and floor, the house is over 20 years old?
there could be lots of reasons why the original tile work has suffered, ie, gradual subsidence in the foundatiions.
post some pics and introduce yourself to TF and hopefully we can assist you

thanks for your help, i have uploaded some photos that hopefully show the ?screed layer on top of my concrete slab foundations and the concrete adhesive used ontop of the screed for the tiles.

does this look ok to tile over? as long as it is all level.

thanks for your help.

that looks a lot like a rendered slab (been toped ) to improve surface or gain falls just tap over the top of it to see if its still sound (like looking for drummy tiles )

i think the unsound portions came up mostly when i removed the tiles with the air chisel otherwise it seems solid.

as long as its sound you should be ablle to patch floor and slc over old addy

From the picture, It looks like you have lifted some of the screed and if you say it came up easily with the tiles, then it has seperated from the concrete slab for some reason. There is a crack running through the concrete slab where the screed has been removed which suggests you have had some movement in the floor, sometime in the past, which may explain why the screed has seperated..make sure the rest of the screed is sound then re-screed the rest - it's quite deep for SLC unless you mix it with sand..let it dry then prime the screed and lay an uncoupling membrane over the screed before tiling..this should prevent your new tiles from cracking...

Whats the eml for on the screed

WB, I thought that too, but a closer look and it seems like that is some cloth mesh laying on top...maybe these were sheet mounted tiles?

your right rob lookes deffo like mosaics on sheets

help i am removing tiles from chipboard( floor tiles) wich have flexable adhesive and has taken 6hrs for 8 tiles so far,
using bolster and lump hammer, hard work, and tips out there cheers keith