How to Take Up Ceramic Tile
- 1). Put on protective goggles and thick gloves. Removing your ceramic tile will cause some to break and they can slice your skin and damage your eyes easily.
- 2). Use a three-pound sledge hammer to whack the ceramic tile toward the middle of the floor. Swing hard to break the tile.
- 3). Look at the area underneath the ceramic tile. The strategy for removal will be different depending on the surface. You can either have a mortar bed or plywood. In some cases, there may be cement backerboard, but this removal process is the same as it is with plywood.
- 4). Chisel through the mortar bed if that's what's underneath the ceramic tile to create a space. Then cram a flatbar into that space and use it to pry up the mortar bed. The ceramic tiles will come with it.
- 5). Use a chisel and hammer to remove two rows of tile if there's plywood or cement backerboard beneath. Remove one entire row going lengthwise and one widthwise. Make sure the rows intersect.
- 6). Use a reciprocating saw to cut through the space where you removed the two rows of ceramic tile. Use this space to pry up the plywood or cement backerboard with a flatbar, and the ceramic tiles will come up with it.
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