To remove tile yourself, put on some safety glasses and leather work gloves; broken shards of tile can slice skin like a knife. Then, grab a cold chisel and a three-pound sledge. There’s nothing subtle about breaking through tile. Just pick a few in the middle of the floor and whack away until you can see what’s underneath.
How to Remove Tile Floor
First, you need a clear floor area to work with. If you’re removing tile flooring from your bathroom, take out the toilet and any pedestal sinks and disconnect all the water pipes or drains that go through the floor.
Before diving into demolition, be aware that older homes may have multiple layers of flooring stacked on top of each other. As one This Old House project revealed, pulling up the baseboard and appliances uncovered two layers of vinyl with lauan plywood between them—all sitting on top of the subfloor. If you discover what appears to be old vinyl tiles or sheet goods during your tear-out, stop work immediately and have the material tested for asbestos before proceeding.
If you don’t know what’s under your ceramic floor tile, you’ll have to do some detective work to find out whether it’s plywood, cement backerboard, or a thick bed of mortar.
Pro Tip: Joe Ferrante, This Old House Magazine’s tile expert, advises: “Put on some safety glasses and leather work gloves; broken shards of tile can slice skin like a knife. Then grab a cold chisel and a three-pound sledge. There’s nothing subtle about breaking through tile.”
For small areas that are only a few feet square, a hammer and a cold chisel will do the job—eventually. On bigger jobs, a tool known as a demolition hammer is a better bet. With a cold-chisel bit chucked in its jaws, this miniature electric jackhammer delivers about 1,000 strikes per minute, working far faster than anyone could pound by hand. The hammering action starts only when the chisel tip is pushed against a hard surface, so the operator remains in full control, with minimal fatigue. You can rent one of these tools and chisels by the day from most home centers.
Remove Ceramic Tile from a Bed of Mortar
If it’s a mortar bed:
- Chisel down through the bed to the tar paper
- Then use a big flatbar or similar demolition tool to pry up chunks of mortar and tile. It should come up fairly easily.
A mortar-bed tile floor — sometimes called a “mud job” — is typically about 1½ inches thick and laid over tar paper. As noted in This Old House Magazine, this is a high-quality installation technique still used today. However, if the floor’s structure was inadequate or the mortar cracked as the house settled, all the mortar will have to come out. Once removed, make sure the floor frame is structurally sound and flat before installing new flooring.
Remove Ceramic Tile from Plywood
If the tile is stuck to plywood, the strategy is a little different.
- Chip out a single row of tile down the length of the floor and another row across the width, with the intersection of the two rows somewhere in the middle of your floor. This will expose the plywood underlayment.
- Now fit a reciprocating saw with a 12-inch-long wood-cutting blade and make a shallow plunge cut into the plywood.
- Just as the blade starts to cut through the plywood, pull the saw toward you and make a continuous, low-angle cut just through the plywood underlayment, not the subfloor. (As awkward as a reciprocating saw may seem, a circular saw is actually harder to control and kicks up too much dust.)
- Once you’ve finished the cut, work your flatbar under the underlayment and rip it up, tile and all.
If the tile is attached to cement backerboard rather than plywood, the approach is similar but requires different tooling. According to This Old House Magazine, you should use a reciprocating saw with a carbide-grit masonry cutting blade and work in one small area at a time. Be aware that if the backerboard is glued down, the plywood subfloor may be damaged during removal, and any damaged panels will have to be ripped out and replaced.
Removing Tile Attached to Cement Backerboard
Tile that’s attached to cement backerboard needs the same kind of treatment as tile stuck to plywood.
- Use a recip saw with a carbide-grit masonry cutting blade and work in one small area at a time.
- If the backerboard is glued down, the plywood subfloor may be damaged during the removal process.
- Any panels that are damaged while removing the ceramic floor tiles will have to be ripped out and replaced.
