Ripping up a travertine floor

[Dirrty]

I went to see a lady tonight to quote for a job, and wouldn't mind some advice on this one. She has a £60,000 kitchen due to be fitted on 14th May. Her husband has decided he doesn't like the travertine floor that has been fitted. So she has asked me to price up for taking it all up, and then laying porcelain 600 x 800 down. It's 70m2 and it has to be done by the 14th! My concern though, apart from the time factor and how I am going to fit it in, is she has underfloor heating, not wires but the hot water pipe type, and I am worried about damaging it. This would be my first uplift. What would be the best way to lift it, and what about removing the old adhesive, do you just scrape it up or what? How long would it take do you think? I was going to charge £30m2 to fit, so £2100 plus mats, but how much to uplift? All suggestions / comments gratefully recieved :huh2:

 

[mark neville]

the water pipes should be about 70mm down to take i up tiles i would try a kango drill with wide edge chisel more on angle so not digging in sreed

 

[Grace'sDad]

Plumbed-in UFH should be in a 40-50mm screed so it should be safe.

Note the use of the word "should"!

 

[White Room]

Is it a new extension if so there should be about 75mm of screed on top of the pipe's but check with the client, I would start with a hammer and bolster if that's to tough then use sds with a wide chisel. How long will it take all depends how well it was put down, I would charge more for the tile's £35-40 a m2 and get myself a bridge cutter for that size.

 

[Highlander]

You should be ok with the screed Dirty unless it was a cowboy that laid it ( had to take down a high spot on screed recently went down 5mm and water hit me in the eye, plumber said dont worry we have patched it six times in the last few days) the tiles should have been put down spf so will be easy enough to get up hire a hilti with wide chisel will eat through it go for the longer one as wont break your back leaning over. I would charge day rate plus price for a skip for dumping rubbish. When ripping up floor buy yourself plastic sheets and tape round door saves dust going through the house and browny points from customer, also make sure you have windows open.

HIS hire out big bridge cutters but they may heve to get one from other depot. I did a job 1000 x 500 tiles but used marcist blade in grinder and a steel edge for running grinder against nice clean cuts. You will be surprised there may not be many noticable cuts and the ones that are against the wall will be covered by skirting.

I would allow 2 days for lifting floor (subject to access ie ease of dumping rubbish) and would advise customer that this is subject to condition of substrate as you may find that it is coming up with adhesive and you may end up using self leveler. Also make sure the undertile heating is either switched of or at the lowest possible heat setting.

All the best.

Highlander

 

[strongboes]

Hi,

Taking the tiles up is going to be a major job, you will make an awful lot of mess, you will need a skip, a labourer would be a good help. Definately some kangoo's!

Then you are going to have to screed the floor to IMO 1mm per 2m.

Laying those size tiles it is imperative to have a perfectly flat floor, and i mean perfect! You are going to need a 900mm dry cutter and depending on room layout perhaps a v large wet cutter. Any cut outs around corners or doors or whatever will take you at least twice as long as normal. I had to buy a rubi tx900 for a job i did as i could not hire or source one anywhere.

If they are having a 60k kitchen then they are going to want the finish absolutely perfect. So if you dont feel like you can achieve this for them then dont take it on else you will be in for some heartache!

If you do feel you can do the job then it is going to take you with a labourer to help pull the floor up and screed around 10 working days to complete if you are fairly quick and confident!

Obviously dont know layout of area but I would be looking to charge around £4600 + mats.

Price may seem high to some but this is an easy job to mess up!

 

[tiler burden]

hi dirty

my mate has a web site called www.performanceplastering.com click on the the gallery section, then in the middle is floor screeding..click on that, wait a few seconds for the pic of the 3 vans to disappear and there will be some interactive pics of underfloor heating covered in a sand and cement screed..this will give you an idea of how it will look. its not the piped ufh, but you'll get the general idea of how thick the screed will be thats covering it...should put your mind at rest

go easy with the kango hammer as instructed in one of the above posts. keep on an angle as instructed

regards
ed

 

[Dirrty]

Thanks guys It's 2 in the morning and I have still got 5 quotes to do including this one.......I am knackered! I think I am gonna price this at £5500 plus mats, cos it sounds like a fcuking awful job to be honest lol. Mind you if she says yes I have no idea how I am gonna fit it in unless one of you lot wanna help :whatchutalkingabout

 

[strongboes]

Let us know what they say re price, would be interested to know! Regards

 

[sWe]

Removing tiles with a small jackhammer and tile bolster is quite fast and easy, and ripping away travertine tiles shouldn't take that long, tbh, but it's going to be VERY messy. I removed an old tile floor covering last week, about 5m2. Tiles were gone in 20 minutes.

It's damn easy to unintentionally "plunge" through screeds with jackhammers though, so make sure you use a wiiide bolster.

I use a special floor scraper for removing old adhesive. It looks like the ones on this page. I want the pneumatic one :wub: