Bl**dy cork floor tiles...

ewans · 6 Aug 2007

whoever invented cork floor tiles as a lot to answer for.

I'm trying to take up some cork tile from a bathroom floor so but its hard hard going using a combination of chessel, spade, and brute force. does anyone have an tips for a quicker way to get these up?

Secondly, i plan to re-tile this with nice percaline tiles, can i lay the tile adhesive directly onto the ply that the cork tiles were placed on or do i need to remove all the residue form the glue/bonder that was holding the cork down first as there are some patches that are still very think with glue etc.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb77/ewans2/DSCF0637.jpg

ta
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adamb4321 · 6 Aug 2007

I had a large wall that covered in cork tiles, I scrapped them off and then went over the wall with a hot air gun to remove the adhesive, a very long job! Probably quicker to replace your ply floor I would think.

gcol · 6 Aug 2007

Looks like you're having fun there!

What thickness is the ply? Is the ply overboarding floorboards?
Sorry I can't recommend anything to remove them.

ewans · 6 Aug 2007

I found a floor tile stripper machine in HSS, £50 but well worth it.

The ply thats there at the moment is 12mm i think nailed at every 6 inches. The floor is solid enough under foot even thought the floorboards underneith are a bit warped. I'm thinking its probably best to lay another thin layer of board on top, does it need to be plywood thought? there are lots of other sheet materials that are much cheeper.?

thoughts anyone?

lmsava · 8 Aug 2007

I had the same problem in my bathroom. My method was to scrape a few bits of tile so that I could find the edges of the plywood subfloor which was where the screws/nails were located that kept it on the floorboards. I then just ripped up the whole plywood floor with the cork tiles still attached. It meant laying a new subfloor but that isn't such a big job if you have a jigsaw and a bit of patience.

(I had the double whammy of cork floor tiles and woodchip on the walls to deal with!)

gcol · 8 Aug 2007

ewans said:
I found a floor tile stripper machine in HSS, £50 but well worth it.

The ply thats there at the moment is 12mm i think nailed at every 6 inches. The floor is solid enough under foot even thought the floorboards underneith are a bit warped. I'm thinking its probably best to lay another thin layer of board on top, does it need to be plywood thought? there are lots of other sheet materials that are much cheeper.?

thoughts anyone?

If your floorboards are not flat then putting another layer of ply over the top is unlikely to help. Also, your floorboards should be screwed to the joists and the 12mm ply on top should be screwed to the floorboards every 200mm all over the surface.
What other sheet material did you have in mind?

ewans · 8 Aug 2007

the floor is flat enough with the existing layer of ply, its just eaiser i think to add another thin layer and screw it down rather than try to remove the glue from the cork tiles as i'm guessing applying the tile grout ontop of the excess cork tile adhesive would be a bad thing.

other sheets cheeper than ply would be a standard grade hardboard 3mm think, what do you think?

http://www.jwgrant.co.uk/search_details.asp?getProds=true&ID=0156329

marshman · 8 Aug 2007

if the old cork tile glue is lumps and not an even coat then when you steped on your tiles layed on a 3mm sheet it would flex and pop your tiles
be better to lay them on a thick adhesive over the glue.

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Bl**dy cork floor tiles...

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