How to Remove Tile - 19 Clever Tips

In this video you'll see 19 clever tips for how to  remove tile so if you want to learn how to remove   ceramic tile or remove a tile floor I'll have you  covered and I really think that a lot of these   tips will help you out and make sure you stick  around until the end because I've got some really   great bonus tips the first tip I have for you is  to remove the baseboards and you want to start by   scoring any kind of silicone that's holding the  baseboard to the wall then I recommend using the   Zenith Trim Puller this is an awesome tool they're  actually sponsoring this video so many thanks to   them but the reason why I like it is because it  actually helps you preserve your baseboards so   whether you're doing this for tile or you're doing  it for carpet you shove the trim puller behind the   baseboard and the wall where you can actually  pull up on it and you'll be able to preserve   the baseboard and use again if you want I'm not  doing that in this bathroom but the trim puller   is awesome because it also helps prevent damage  to the walls I also recommend removing any of   the nails because as you'll see here somebody  accidentally put a finish nail through my vent   which is never good so I have to fix that and  maybe in a future video I'll show you how to do it   tile floor removal is inherently a little bit  dangerous so I do recommend wearing a silica dust   respirator and gloves because when you're doing  this you're going to be on your hands and your   knees so I also recommend wearing some knee pads  and some hearing protection but before you dive   into the tile floor removal make sure you do a few  additional things for example you want to seal off   any of the duct work I'm just using duct tape and  going over top of this register now I'm actually   not keeping the register so I'm going to pull  it and if you're doing the same thing you can   seal the ductwork with a sponge and some rags it's  really important not to get dust into the ductwork   then I pulled the cover off my closet flange and  I also put a rag down in there no matter how you   do it tile floor removal is always a bit dirty so  I sealed off the room wore my respirator and my   hearing protection and I just started smashing the  tile with a hammer this is the most basic approach   it's not that expensive and most people do have  hammers now the deal with the hammer method is   it is going to produce a lot of dust in the room  you can also try to pry up underneath the tile   and pull it off of the backer board or pull the  backer board and the tile off of the substrate   typically you're working with a wood subfloor or a  concrete subfloor and the backer board is adhered   to it using a thinset mortar I'll get into that a  little bit later on in this video because that's   obviously what you might run into as you can  see removing this tile is a bit difficult and   one of the biggest tips I have for you is when  you're smashing it always take the small pieces   and move them to the side because if you have  small pieces on top of the tile those are going   to bounce back up as you strike the tile and hit  you in the face and tile is sharp so I definitely   recommend that you don't have pieces of tile  on top of the tile you're going to be removing   so I'm just removing each tile one at a time the  other tip I have for you is put a contractor's   bag into a Brute garbage can and then as you're  removing the tile and the backer board you can   shovel all the pieces into the garbage can this  will keep this space nice and neat here I'm   trying to remove the backer board off of the wood  subfloor using a 36 inch pry bar obviously the   more leverage you get the easier this is going to  be so try to get the biggest pry bar that you can   36 inch pry bar works well for me typically so I  highly recommend it and it's not very expensive so   it's an easy tool to pick up at the home store I'm  just trying to wedge it up underneath the backer   board in between the subfloor the other big tip  I have for you is to remove screws and or nails   from the backer board before you throw the backer  board into the contractor's bag and the reason   why is you don't want screws or nails in the bag  I'll explain why a little bit later I then remove   all of the screws and the nails off of the  subfloor and I put those into a plastic bottle   and the reason why I do that is because I don't  want them to go through my boot or into a tire   when removing tile around a closet flange that  your toilet sits on be really careful because   you don't want to smash the closet flange with  your hammer this will have to lead to a repair   and nobody wants to have any additional repairs  when they're removing a tile floor so when you're   smashing the tile around the closet flange just  pay attention be patient and be careful not to   hit the flange and damage it if you have a tub in  your bathroom there are a few additional tips for   example try to seal up the drain I'm not keeping  this tub but I definitely don't want any scraps of   tile to go down into my p-trap the other thing  is you'll want to score any kind of silicone   that's sealing the tile to the tub this is going  to release the tile from the tub when you smack it   so you can see here i'm smashing the tile and all  the tiles are being released from the tub that way   I don't have to worry about damaging the tub if  I chose to keep it but again I removed that the   other thing that I did was remove the backer board  after the tile so if your tile is really hard to   remove remove the tile first then you can tackle  the backer board after that backer board is heavy   tile is heavy so if you remove one layer at a time  this is going to be a much easier process for you   that being said sometimes the backer board is  adhered to the floor using thinset mortar so   just be prepared for that if it's the case  because that can be a real pain I lucked out   in this case because I don't know what they used  but it wasn't very strong so I was able to easily   for the most part remove the backer board from  the subfloor without too much effort the next   step after removing all the cement board was to  remove the nails or the screws using a 36 inch pry   bar instead of the hammer so I also have a lot of  thinset on this floor but I'm not going to remove   that in this bathroom because I had to remove  all the subfloor to tackle a different issue   so I removed the subflooring and I noticed that  all of the copper pipes were exhibiting potential   pinhole leak problems as you can see these green  spots are on the pipe and that represents areas   where the pipe will potentially leak now here's a  bonus tip for you if you're keeping your subfloor   and you want to remove the mortar you can dampen  the subfloor with a sponge and use a grinder and   a special blade for removing thinset to remove  all that residue off the top of the plywood this   is a very easy and efficient way to do it it can  be dusty so just make sure that you use a sponge   to dampen the subfloor first if you'd like the  tips on how to remove a tile floor give this   video a thumbs up obviously this is the first  step in doing a bathroom remodel so if you're   doing that make sure you check out our other  videos thanks for watching and i'll see you soon

Channel: Home Repair Tutor

Views: 136,383

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Id: XfmQ3G88NTc

Length: 6min 36sec (396 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 07 2022