Remove flexible adhesive?

[Shropshire lad]

Hi guys,
Im looking for some advice. I've started to lift some ceramic tiles with a view to replacing them with porcelain. The current tiles have been laid with flexible adhesive and grout onto a wooden floor and I'll be looking to stick the new ones down with the same. The problem is that the old tiles come up but the adhesive doesn't.
Any ideas on how to get the old adhesive off the wooden floor? At the moment I've just been using a hammer and a wide chisel and taking off the top surface of the wood. Trouble is itll take me forever and leave me with biceps like Popeye's if I have to do all the room like this. Cheers​

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[Billy Hunt]

How about a few bags of self levelling compound poured over the whole floor? or overboarding with addy ,no more ply and screws,either way you will be putting extra height on the floor.

 

[Mike Mike]

I would sand that off with a rotary floor machine. See if you can hire one, depending how big your room is might take between 1 - 3 hours. Use 24 grit paper, and you'll need a lot of it, as it will get clogged up quickly.

Redirect Notice

I wouldn't recommend a drum type floor sander as I think you'll clog it up and possible damage it, or spend more time taking the drum apart to free it up than actually sanding...

Good luck!

 

[kendo1]

I'd use an SDS hammer drill with a chisel attachment.
You can buy them quite cheaply if it is only for one job, probably cheaper than hiring.

 

[swanman]

Good advise i would go with kendol1 on the sds hammer

 

[Shropshire lad]

Hi all, I tried the SDS but the flexible adhesive seemed to absorb the chisel action and it was slower than by hand. In the end I chipped out the tiles around the perimeter and then use a circular saw to cut out the floor boards. Took me half a day to chop out the tiles then another half day to lift the boards and replace. I recon itll be quicker in the long run to have replaced (and have a smooth surface to tile on) than chip out and level/ make up while tiling. Cheers.

 

[kendo1]

Sorry to hear the SDS didn't work. You're probably right about replacing the floor.
Thanks for letting us know.

Ken

 

[Stef]

Hi when you say laid onto a wooden floor, has it been tiled directly onto the floorboards or was it a plywood overlay?