Easy with the right tools.......

My tiny little wife removed 30 yards of vinyl and luan underlayment by herself in about half of a day this summer in preparation for re-doing our floors.

Tools:
Floor scraper from Harbor Freight - sort of looks like a sidewalk ice scraper, but with a 15-degree kink in the head for leverage
Imitation "Wonder Bar", also from Harbor Freight - a flat wrecking bar
Stanley knife with sharp blades

Use the Stanley knife to score the vinyl and luan underlayment in 3ft x 3ft sections or so, then use either of the other tools (you need more room for the handle of the floor scraper) to pry up the floor sections. You will find thousands of staples but most willl come loose with the luan.

Obviously a hammer helps too.

 

I have heard of people using an iron wrapped in a towel to heat the linoleum and melt the glue adhesive, then use a scraper to peal up linoleum. But I have never tried this, so take it slow

 

My son just bought a condo and it has 2 layers of vinyl flooring and we want to remove it and lay ceramic tile down. Whats the easiest way to do this. we tried adheasive remover and water but it didn't budge. We also bought a 4 inch scraper and no luck. HELP

So do you have the vinyl floor removed and are just trying to remove the glue?

If the vinyl is still there, explain how you are applying the adheasive remover.

When you say a 4 inch scraper I hope you are talking about type that MI-Roger was mentioning and not a 4 inch putty knife.

So more info please.

 

Yes, it's hard work. That's why we pros charge a lot to do it.

 

Wow she must be tough. We have the long handle scraper and it would not budge. We put the adhesive remover on let it set like the directions and nothing. We actually used a putty knife and it worked the best. I got the scraper from lowes maybe the angle just isn't right?! We are renting an electric scraper today hopefully that will work.

 

Oh and there are 2 layers of vinyl.

 

Leave the vinyl attached to the luan.....

Use the long handled floor scraper or wonder bar to pry each combined layer of luan and vinyl off the floor beneath it. Since you want to remove two layers you will need to do this twice, one trip across the room for each combined layer.

My wife had the advantage of our home having a 6-ft wide step up from the family room to the level of the kitchen/bath/hall with the old vinyl and luan. I had removed the metal edging on this step edge the day before so she had a great place to start removing.

You should have this same acces to the edges of the floor at any transition strips between vinyl and adjacent carpeted areas. Remove the transition molding and use a hammer to drive the wonder bar under the exposed edge of the top layer, then pry it loose.

I removed the vinyl/luan combo floor in the bath after I removed the toilet (the only area my wife didn't do). It wasn't as easy as she described to me, but she did the large open area which gave her more room to work with the larger tool.

The manager at the flooring store said his guys use hatchets to chop the old floor layers off. (Must use shingler's hatchets?) His description convinced us to do the job ourselves with far more care than a hatchet allows.