removing tiles from a kitchen

Stoner

I have tiles in my kitchen that are a real pain to clean, according to the papers Irish men are doing all the cleaning these days. Anyway they hold dirt and stain like mad, I had a thread before about some sort of seal to put on them, but they wont take one, the guys in right price tiles had the sealing compound but they said it was not for my tiles.

Anyway I want to take them up, my kitchen is about 6Mx6M, I dont want to tile over the ones there already as i dont want a step.

I've been told that this is a difficult job, any ideas on what to use? is there something i can rent to make life easier.

miles teg

The tiles may not be that hard to get off at all. I removed my kitchen tiles with a hammer and chisel fairly handy. Hitting at them from the underside makes them pop up fairly easy... there were a few stubborn ones though.

GreeBo

Are they on concrete or wood?
its much harder to get the off concrete than wood, especially removing all the tile cement.

Stoner

they are on concrete, I was thinking of a chisel bit in my drill, I just don't want a disaster area that can't be tiled.

GreeBo

Does your drill have a hammer only action?
Thats how I did it, with one of those SDS drills....hard work though and very noise if you are in a semi-D

db

best way to do this is with hammer and an old wood chisel. Don't forget the goggles and gloves. I wouldn't use a drill for this - you want to hit the chisel and lever up the tile. Use a narrow chisel for the grout and a wide chisel to get under the tiles.

Once you get the first one out they should be ok. The chisel will get underneath and lift up the tiles. Some of them can be difficult though.

John Mason

i got a lump hammer and a special chisel thing for taking off tiles, the previous owners of my house had tiled over tiles, so i had two layers to take off and it worked brilliantly, might be a good idea to get googles though, some of them are bit tricky to get off and can shattered

good luck

Stoner

thanks all, yeah my drill have the hammer only action, I was hoping that I'd be able to get under and flick them up, but someone told me that they can break and leave a lumps surface thats very difficult to tile over, I'll give those options a go, I was kind of hoping that a narrow spade would work once I go going, but it does not sound like a runner now.

Alun

If you're going down the drill + chisel route, then your drill must be an SDS one, not an ordinary bog-standard hammer drill. Many (but not all, check before buying!) SDS drills have have a 'hammer-only' option setting that ordinary hammer drills don't.