DIY Floor TIle Removal How-To

Let me apologize in advance for the lack of pretty pictures today. This project was a messy one, as you will see! DIY floor tile removal is no joke!

One thing I have wanted to do forever in my house is to remove the outdated flooring that we have downstairs and replace it all with new matching wood floors. We had tile in our tiny entry, carpet in the living room (you can see pics of the living room here)  and plank flooring in the kitchen.

I disliked the carpet especially, so I always kept a large area rug over it. That only added to the crazy mishmash of flooring I had going on. Recently, we finally tacked this project, I am happy to say!

We began by removing all the old flooring, and I wanted to share with you today how to remove tile. Although I would say this is something you can do yourself,  it was NOT FUN.

The Right Tools For DIY Tile Removal:

Here is a list of the essential tools you’ll need to remove tile yourself. I’ve included the protective gear I would recommend, tile pieces can go flying during this project so keeping yourself protected is a must.

• Hammer
• Flathead Screwdriver
• Chisel/Scraper
• Pry Bar
• Safety Glasses
• Dust Mask
• Knee Pads
• Work Gloves
• A Chiropractor (kidding, sort of)

For our project, the DIY floor tile removal was limited to our entryway. This is one time I was really happy to have a small foyer. For larger projects, I might suggest hiring out because it is tough work to get old tiles up.

I started it myself one day while my husband was at work to see if I was able to get any of them up. The most important thing to remember with this project is to wear safety glasses and gloves and to keep kids and pets far away. When the tile starts popping up, shards of tile will fly everywhere. Consider wearing a long-sleeved shirts and pants as well.

bEST wAY to beGIN rEMOVING tILE

First, keep in mind that the most important steps to follow for removing tile is to use your protective gear! Safety precautions are a must on any tile removal job.

We had removed the carpeting in the living room first, so I was able to access the tiles from the side, which seemed to be the best approach. If your tile goes to the wall, you’ll need a pry bar to first remove the baseboards.

If you can’t get side access to the tiles, break up the first tile with the blunt side of a hammer to create a starting point.

To begin, I wedged a flathead screwdriver under the tile and hammered it until it slid underneath. There were areas the tile was so set I couldn’t get the screwdriver under but I found if I moved it around I would eventually find a spot where I could get a little leverage.

Once I got underneath the ceramic tile, I would hammer it until I heard a little suction noise and then I was able to pop the tile up, though it came up in small broken pieces.

Some loose tile came up in big pieces and some came up in tiny pieces, but it wasn’t terrible getting it up.

Sidenote: I should also mention at this point that the yellow line around the wall is there because I also removed the chair rail (learn how easy it is to remove moldings yourself here) that we had in this room, we plan to add board and batten in this space once the floors and moldings are done.

We cleaned up the broken tiles with a broom and dustpan. Gloves are recommended to protect your hands from sharp edges.

Removing The Tile Adhesive

Once the tiles were up, it was what was underneath that was kind of a nightmare. All the mastic adhesive from the tiles was stuck to the concrete floor underneath.

I believe there is a machine you can rent or buy to get this stuff up, but for such a small area I didn’t think it was worth it. So we chiseled it off by hand. In fact, there are probably several power tools that may have been a better option, such as a hammer drill, but I used what I had available.

Ugh!  My husband used this type of chisel, which may or may not be a masonry chisel.

I found this one was easier for me, it was more lightweight and this is also worked as a sander/scraper. I also use a hammer and most tools from my own little toolkit because they are smaller and easier to handle for me than my husband’s heavier tools. You may also want to use a long-handled floor scraper to make it easier.

This is where there will be a lot of dust so it’s a good idea to have a face mask handy. You may even want to consider hanging plastic sheeting to contain this to one area. We did keep a shop vac handy to help control the dust as we worked.

This little 5 x 4 space took us quite a while to clear that mastic out. I can’t imagine how long it would take with more square feet. It was very slow going because it only came up in tiny pieces. I had to keep reminding myself, “This will be worth it. This will be worth it!”,  while my husband’s motto was “I love my wife, I love my wife”. You may have seen a snippet of him working on this in my Instagram stories a week or so ago.

It was tedious and exhausting. I could barely lift my arms to brush my hair the next day because I was so sore. There were some areas where we weren’t able to get the tile adhesive completely off the entire floor. In those spots, I was able to use the smaller chisel as a sander/scraper and flatten those areas out that way.

Installing the new floors

We have the new flooring installed now, which I’ll show you as soon as we get the moldings back up. I’m not going to write a how-to post on putting those in because it was exactly the same process we used when we installed the vinyl plank flooring in my daughter’s room.

Home renovation is hard work but it always pays off in the end. I will say now that the new floors are in, it really was totally worth it. 🙂  Here’s a peek at them, as I mentioned we still have to replace the moldings.

So as you can see removing tile flooring is a doable DIY project, but it will require a lot of elbow grease! Renovation work can be so expensive to hire out so anywhere we can save we try to do it ourselves!

You can see how we made this small space feel much larger with the new, uniform flooring here!

If you have outdated tile like we did and aren’t ready to do your own DIY floor tile removal just yet, see how I updated the tile floors in my bathroom – the easy way!

*This post contains affiliate links, you can read my full disclosure here.

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