Remove ceramic tile before installing wood floor? (Center: appointed, rental)

[topdowntx]

Hi,

This is such a wonderful place to get advice since ppl here are so knowledgable and friendly.

We just closed on a 3500sqft house in sugarland. The living room, kitchen and hallway are covered by slippery ceramic tiles. We wanted to put engineered wood floor on it. We have been interviewing floor installers for two weeks so far and got confused on whether the tiles should be removed before installinig wood floor. Some contractors said that the tile doesn't need to be removed, they will just glue the wood floor on top of it and there won't be problem forever. Other contractors said the tiles should definitely be removed otherwise the glue will not work after 3-5 yrs.

We've heard that removing ceramic floors is such a painful process... Does anyone have commons on that? Thanks in advance!!!

[Hayato]

1. tiles might have sealants, its purpose it to not let anything stick to it
2. if you do not want to remove the tiles the overall height of the floor will be alot higher. that maybe an issue with carpet'd areas connected to the tile'd area
3. if height is not an issue you can always just screw in a subfloor on top of the tiles if you want to glue or nail down floors

[jimboburnsy]

This is really going to be at your discretion. I think that laying the floors over the existing tile is definitely the easy way and removing the tiles is the right way, but either will probably yield satisfactory results. If you go with the easy way you will have a floor that is noticeably higher than the existing tile and there may be some truth to the notion that the glue will wear out as the slick tile surface will not give it anything to grab. If you go with the right way you will probably have to chip up the tiles and remove the underlying mortar, which is truly a pain if you do it yourself and expensive if you pay someone else. I don't know much about engineered floors but you may also have to lay a subfloor, which is more pain/money.

[icon7]

I did it the hard way...Remove the Tile. Buy a tool to break the tile and spend one day. Some of the tiles may pop up easy. but to get rid of the motar is grunt work. Everyone needs exercise.

Then have the Wood Floor contractor level the floor with leveling compound. This is a must! even in the new home I am building they did this, and I thought the floors were perfect. Dont skimp on the glue either.

If the floor is too high, you will have issue with doors too.

[Beto]

You may have some low or high spots with the tile and this will make room for an uneven floor. Do it the right way, rip the tile floor out and start from scratch.

[Supermac34]

Take the tile up. You don't want the wood floor coming up too high on your base board anyways. Make sure they float the area well due to the inevitable chipping and glue left on the floor.

[gold dust]

Yikes, this all almost makes you want to just keep the tile and not re-model at all!

[Beto]

If you really want it you will make it happen.

[Hayato]

No worries. They've already invented the tile floor scraper. All you need to do is remove one tile and literally mow those tiles off. It might be available from rental places locally (for DIY'rs), and floor installers should have access to one. They look like mowers but with a big *** chisel upfront.

AA Rental Center | Floor Scraper electric general

[Supermac34]

If you aren't TOO disappointed in the tile, you could always just give it a trial run and replace it later. Who knows, you may start living day to day with it and figure out you don't mind it that much. It would save a lot of money.