Need some advice on how to remove ceramic tiles over wood floors.

sandman512

I need to try and get the wood floors ready for finishing. I want to remove the ceramic tiles that are placed over the wood floors with out damaging the wood. Thanks in advance.

slakker

In the past, I've used a hammer in combination with a 4" cold chisel and a "wonderbar"... It's a 2 in wide - 18 in long wrecking bar that works quite well in getting under the tiles and popping them out. I then use a 6" florr scraping tools to clean up any loose thin set...

Krichton

Even if you get the tiles off safely you still have to chip away the mastic perfectly. It's hard for me to imagine you not gauging and chipping the hardwood floor doing this.

slakker

I just realized your situation is tiles over HARDWOOD flooring... I thought you meant just wood subflooring... sorry, not sure if my method would help as I don't have any experience with that situation.

What have I done

i have chipped off and scraped as best as can without gauging digging into the flooring, some will happen and we call them character marks! All old floors have them.
The mastic and adhesive can be a bear especially when linoleum was glued down. I use a floor edger, 7" discs over the entire floor with course paper. it grinds the floor clean. You will use a ton of discs so buy in bulk and save some $$. Once floor is done with the edger, I use a drum sander over the floor to remove all the circles the edger had put in. A lot of work but well worth it in the end. As long as you have a decent floor to start with. Most were 3/4" so there is product there to grind on. Good luck post pictures!