Laying sheet vinyl floor over an uneven, nasty surface.

[DavidHowells]

Hiya,

I've recently moved into an old terraced house - a bit of a fixer-upper - and have started some cosmetic renovation. In tried and true fashion, the more I do, the more I find to do - and that is absolutely the case with the kitchen floor.

The Plan!
Pull up the old kitchen tiles and lay some decent sheet vinyl.

The floor, as I found it, was vinyl tiles; these were extremely old, brittle and cracking, as below:

Untitled

• DavidHowells
• 24 Aug 2009
• 1

The floor was uneven, with one area concrete and not tiled, as below:

Untitled

• DavidHowells
• 24 Aug 2009
• 1

The tiles were stuck down with some tar-like adhesive, as below:

Untitled

• DavidHowells
• 24 Aug 2009
• 1

The problems!
The tar-like adhesive is not coming off. I've scraped it till my fingers bled ('was the summer of '69), but not joy. I haven't pulled all the tiles off yet, but I'm wondering if there's any better way of doing this?

a) Can I pour some sort of levelling compound over the whole lot of it and start from there?

b) Should I stop pulling up tiles, tidy up and lay the sheet vinyl over the top (with an uneven surface below)?

c) Move out?

Seriously though, any suggestions much appreciated. I'm on a very, very tight budget so laying down wood or somesuch probably not possible.

Thank you in advance for any help!

David

 

[mattysupra]

bead or shot blasting to remove the bitumin adhesive. If you can scrap it flat then you can skim over the top with a smoothing compound. Read the stickys at the top .

Also use a large SHARP scrapper, the tiles will fly up almost whole. By the looks of it your using a blunt object and causing yourself extra work .

You cant lay vinyl over the top without skimming the floor first as the bitumin will discolour the new flooring.

 

[DavidHowells]

bead or shot blasting to remove the bitumin adhesive. If you can scrap it flat then you can skim over the top with a smoothing compound. Read the stickys at the top .

Also use a large SHARP scrapper, the tiles will fly up almost whole. By the looks of it your using a blunt object and causing yourself extra work .

You cant lay vinyl over the top without skimming the floor first as the bitumin will discolour the new flooring.

Hi Mat,

Thanks very much for the reply. I'll definitely look into the Bead/Shot Blasting as it's not budging with the scraper.

I bought a new scraper to get the tiles up, but they're so brittle they're just exploding into pieces. It's happening, just slowly.

Just to confirm though, if you don't mind a follow-up - I need to get all of the tar up before anything can go over the top? I can't just skim over the top?

Again, thanks very much!

 

[mattysupra]

shot/bead blaster will only remove the bitumin, not the tiles.

You should be removing all adhesive before putting down a smoothing compound. But if its only a thin layer and well bonded you could get away with laying a acrylic compound like f-balls 200. Have a look on there website for a stockest near you.

 

[dextrous]

Another and possibly quicker solution would be to overlay the whole area with ply. The main problem with this will be the number of screws and rawlplugs you'll need to get in to the existing concrete. Hire or buy an sds drill to do this and it should work easily enough though.

 

[mattysupra]

Another and possibly quicker solution would be to overlay the whole area with ply. The main problem with this will be the number of screws and rawlplugs you'll need to get in to the existing concrete. Hire or buy an sds drill to do this and it should work easily enough though.

personaly im not into screwing ply over concrete. A few reasons being that you need the correct amount of fixings, ie loads of drilling and pluging! You will also need to counter sink all screws so a 10mm+ ply and then skim coat all joints and screw heads.

Main reasons are noise if any grit etc under

Hidden pipe work under the concrete!

and the chance of drilling to deep and puncture the dpm.

 

[dextrous]

Another and possibly quicker solution would be to overlay the whole area with ply. The main problem with this will be the number of screws and rawlplugs you'll need to get in to the existing concrete. Hire or buy an sds drill to do this and it should work easily enough though.

personaly im not into screwing ply over concrete. A few reasons being that you need the correct amount of fixings, ie loads of drilling and pluging! You will also need to counter sink all screws so a 10mm+ ply and then skim coat all joints and screw heads.

Main reasons are noise if any grit etc under

Hidden pipe work under the concrete!

and the chance of drilling to deep and puncture the dpm.

But apart from that, it's a great idea, no

 

[mattysupra]

yes mate, best thing since sliced bread.

 

[Petethemeet]

I had these exact tiles in my late 60's house ( kitchen) and removed them in prep for a new lino. Some of the tiles were cracked, but I left the black substance alone. there was obviosly a little dust around as I was moving them.

I am now worried as I have been led to believe these tiles may have asbestos in them, even though I used a mask for most of the time whilst laying removing them.

Can anybody confirm or deny the if they did contain asbestos.

 

[mattysupra]

nobody seems to know. I have been told they have before but then i have been told they dont? I was on a massive job where we was stripping them up while there was an asbestos removal team in house removing the asbestos from the walls etc. They said they dont contain any.

I would also think that there would be warnings about them also as most houses contain them.