# Floor Removal Nightmare



## tk3000

The house I purchased is mostly a duplex, and the other part of the duplex has not seem much comsteic work. This part is on a slab that is below grade, and the floor is a nightmare of layers upon layers of flooring and different types of adhesives: some redish adhesive, and the black alphaltic  cutback adehsive with asbestos, etc. In  some spots they seem to have used the black cutback as leveling cement with then thick layers with this thing. 

Below is a pic depicting this floor quagmire: 








The manual approach based on lots of elbow grease would take forever. I realized that there are some scrape machines for rental at home depot with special blades to be used with cutback, but then I have a  myriad of adhesives and pieces of flooring all over. I was wondering about the best approach to tackle this job.

thks!


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## Sparky617

What is your ultimate goal for the floor?  I would probably use a leveling compound to smooth out the floor and not try to remove anything else.  Then I'd put whatever flooring I wanted over the leveling compound.  Since it is below grade your options with laminates are limited.


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## tk3000

Sparky617 said:


> What is your ultimate goal for the floor?  I would probably use a leveling compound to smooth out the floor and not try to remove anything else.  Then I'd put whatever flooring I wanted over the leveling compound.  Since it is below grade your options with laminates are limited.



My ultimate goal is to install ceramic tiles. 

But in some areas there vinyl sheet flooring and some spots a peeling off whilst other spots (most of them) are glued in place. I know that the thinset mortar will not adhere to the floor with these adhesive in place. Does the leveling compound adhere to this mess? 

thk!


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## nealtw

I suspect the vinyl will have to go but it will be up to the primer used and what that manufacture wants you to do.


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## nealtw

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GfQjTuvYPI[/ame]

Staples may not work, but you could pin it to the floor.


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## tk3000

nealtw said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GfQjTuvYPI
> 
> Staples may not work, but you could pin it to the floor.



Hmmm... Yeah, that may be an option but I am not very confident. Besides there are several spots that are uneven, and in the past they even filled out some uneven spots with the black adhesive stuff. 

It seems that some times the most difficult part would be to remove the underlying adhesive (black stuff or redish one) to which the thinset would not not adhere to. 

thks


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## joecaption

Google Soy Mastic remover.


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## vinny186

Perhaps you could use the leveling compound like others suggested then build a floor on top with 2x4's laid flat and OSB.


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## tk3000

joecaption said:


> Google Soy Mastic remover.



In the past I tried to use some adhesive remover (that according to its instructions removes cutback as well) called "Sentinel Formula 747 Plus Floor Adhesive Remover". It did work sparsely and sporadicly depending on how thick the adhesive layer was, and still require quite some elbow grease since it mostly softens the material to some extent. And it is not cheap either.

I will look into this Soy Mastic, but if it is like the 747 it ain't going to cut it.

The 747 helps in some instances and in some spots, but I don't feel like relying on it to remove most of the flooring adhesive (there is just too much).





(on this room the difference layers of vinyl is removed, but there are many spots with adhesive that would be needed to be scraped)






 (in this one the challenge of removing the flooring is just beginning)


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## Mastercarpenty

Perhaps cementitious backer board could be glued down, I don't really know as tile is not one of my best subjects. Head over to the John Bridge Tile forum and ask there- those folks live and breathe tile and they will know the best solution.

Phil


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## tk3000

vinny186 said:


> Perhaps you could use the leveling compound like others suggested then build a floor on top with 2x4's laid flat and OSB.


Does leveling compound adhere to these adhesives (cutback+ redish one)?

You mean to use 2x4's to create some sort of grid and then laying down OSB for subfloor? That seems too much work.
thks


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## Rusty

Mastercarpenty said:


> Perhaps cementitious backer board could be glued down, I don't really know as tile is not one of my best subjects. Head over to the John Bridge Tile forum and ask there- those folks live and breathe tile and they will know the best solution.
> 
> Phil



No you cannot glue down backer board, I fact you never use backer board over concrete.


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## Rusty

vinny186 said:


> Perhaps you could use the leveling compound like others suggested then build a floor on top with 2x4's laid flat and OSB.



I have seen that tried and it ALWAYS fails.


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## nealtw

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wuTmmrtQoE[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI-8v5d3mqY[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM6z3leZvm4[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ribheJF1HY0[/ame]


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## tk3000

nealtw said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wuTmmrtQoE
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI-8v5d3mqY
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM6z3leZvm4
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ribheJF1HY0



Good stuff. I ha watched all these videos previously, plus another one: which shows a new scraper tool available at home depot used to scrape old adhesive (shown on the second video), and I was strongly considering using it but first I would need to remove the layers of linolium from all rooms (just too much area). Some of the upper layers of linolium were lightly glued and were fairly easy to remove, but the lower layers are rather difficult to remove even with a brick chisel and hammer (taking forever). 

I plan on using the scrapper machine (rented at homedepot) at some point, but first off I would need to remove the different layers of flooring with brick chisel and hammer (or maybe renting the floor removal machine would be in order)

thks


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