Loose kitchen floor tiles

[Mike Roberts]

Can anyone help? I'd like to ascertain the best way to lift a kitchen floor tile without breaking it. Ta muchly!

 

[Dan]

You'd want to use a grout rake (http://www.tradetiler.com/grout-rake.html) or a machine like a fein multimaster (you can hire these from the odd shop) http://www.tradetiler.com/fein-multimaster-tilers-kit-select-voltage.html with the type of head that looks a bit like a grout rake. Take out all the grout around the tile, then hopefully the tile will come up. You might still crack it, usually when replacing a cracked tile it wouldn't matter about the tile, you'd just remove the grout around it so you didn't upset the joining tiles. You'd then smash it and get the bits out using a chisel or pretty much anything that seems to work.

In your case you're hoping it has debonded from the floor, and that the grout is holding it in place. Hence the popping / clicking sound. What you might find is the subfloor is popping and the tile has actually still got a strong bond to that, in which case you could do with then using some tool to cut the sub floor surface in the shape of the tile, so the lot comes up.

Not ideal.

I'm assuming the subfloor is wood..? I can't actually see where you've said?

 

[Mike Roberts]

Yeah, it's wood subfloor. I'll follow your advice and simply see how I get on. I'm worried about cracking the tile as they were laid when we moved in, no spares, and I've no idea where they are from!

My suspicion is that the tile has debonded from the subfloor. On the main problem tile, you can see where one of the corners lifts and raises as you apply weight to it. Anyway, we'll see. If it is a case of the tile has debonded, hopefully I'll be able to prise it up without breakage.

 

[Dan]

I'll be brutally honest here and say that it sounds like the lot is going to have to come up. I'm not sure what you'll achieve by getting one or two up. The rest will eventually have the same issue if the wood has got soaking wet and then dried again, it's a matter of time really.

You could do with investigating and getting a couple of pictures uploaded. But perhaps at the same time, have a scan over your insurance documents and see what the terms are.

 

[CJ]

Sometimes it is a case of bite the bullet and rip up and prep properly....then re do. It's a pain in the backside.......but if not, you could be re fixing odd tiles here and there for an age.