Chisel, scrub, and sand your way to a smooth surface
You’ve pulled up some old tiles to prep for a DIY bathroom renovation, but now you find yourself with a floor covered in old adhesive. Before you can install new tile, you’ll have to clear away the old adhesive for new flooring to lay evenly. Here’s how to remove floor tile adhesive in six steps—manually or with power tools.
Before you learn how to remove floor tile adhesive, you’ll want to protect the area from the inevitable dust that comes from this job. Cover counters, tubs, light switches, baseboards, and any other surfaces and crevices that you want to protect from dust.
Next, it’s helpful to know what type of adhesive is on the floor since certain types may require specialized removal tools. If you don’t know the type of adhesive, call in a tile specialist to inspect the area, determine the adhesive type, and help you decide on the next steps for removal.
There are multiple steps to removing floor tile adhesive, but how many you need to take really depends on how stubborn the adhesive is. Some adhesives just need a bit of chiseling or sanding to lift, and other adhesives could require specialized solvents or power tools. Take these steps to start chipping away at old floor tile adhesive.
Roll up your sleeves, grab a hammer and a chisel, and prepare to chip away at the adhesive little by little. This works best in small areas of tile. Angle the chisel with the edge of the chisel against the adhesive. Then, use the hammer to apply pressure to the chisel and lift the adhesive.
If chiseling doesn’t seem to be working or is leaving behind chunks of adhesive, it’s time to move on to soaking and scrubbing away the floor tile adhesive. Apply warm or hot water to the adhesive, and let the adhesive soak for one to two hours. This alone may help loosen and lift the adhesive, but if it’s still sticking, you can move on to the next step for further removal.
You can use a solvent (such as soap, laundry detergent, or acetone) or purchase an oil-based adhesive or mortar remover at a home improvement store to remove floor tile adhesive. After soaking the adhesive in warm water, apply the solvent to the floors for at least five minutes, then use the chisel to lift the adhesive and remove it.
After soaking the adhesive and applying a solvent to remove the specific type of adhesive on your floors, you can use steel wool, a scrub brush, or a scouring pad to remove the loosened adhesive. This may require multiple passes over the floor to fully remove the adhesive.
If you need to cover a large floor area in a spacious kitchen, you may be better off using power tools, such as a floor grinder or even a chisel attachment on a power drill. This process works best if you have previous training and experience in using the equipment. You’ll need to follow the instruction manual for the power tools, working in small sections to remove floor tile adhesive.
If you aren’t sure how to use the power tools or they are out of your budget to buy or rent, you’ll want to hire a tile specialist to come remove the adhesive for you.
For smaller areas, you can use sandpaper to manually sand down the adhesive or use a tool, like an orbital sander, to buff away and remove floor tile adhesive. This step can either be done on its own as a way to remove the adhesive or as a finishing step (following other efforts like chiseling or using a solvent) to fully sand and smooth out the surface of the floor.
Removing tile costs around $2 to $5 per square foot, including removing the adhesive, when DIYing. For supplies, you’ll need steel wool or other scrubbing tools, sandpaper, and solvent, which will cost around $25 to $50. But if you need to purchase an orbital sander or rent a floor grinder for the day, this project could cost hundreds of dollars more. Renting a floor grinder alone may cost $100 to $200 per day.
You can skip all the time and energy it takes to remove floor tile adhesive by hiring a local tile contractor for help. Not only that, but pros will already have the tools and supplies ready to quickly remove the adhesive, meaning this could be a better choice for your budget. If you run into asbestos tile, you definitely need to call a pro because the material could make you sick, but pros can handle it safely. Asbestos tile removal costs $1,200 to $3,250.
Solvents dissolve tile adhesive, but the right solvent for the job depends on what type of adhesive you are trying to remove. For instance, dispersion adhesive requires stronger removers, like bile soap or even paint stripper, but some adhesives, like cement-based products, can come off with water and soap or mortar remover.
While vinegar can remove some adhesives, it may not work at removing floor tile adhesives. Floor tile adhesives are particularly strong in order to hold up to foot traffic, so vinegar may not be powerful enough to remove them. However, if you use peel-and-stick tiles for your kitchen backsplash or mudroom floor, vinegar may help clean up any adhesive residue from those types of tiles.
