Pulling up old floor to get 'new' floor...

[Aymz1983]

Hello

We've not long moved into a 40's built house, and one of the jobs to do is to sort out the floor in the kitchen. Its not level from where its been built over, and its full of mis matched vinyl (i think) tiles common to council homes.

In the hallway we have lovely quarry tiles original to the house, and have been told that most of the homes had them in the kitchen as well, but as said earlier, have just had...whatever just dumped on top of them.

I would love to have these original quarries as the kitchen floor (as well as the hallway) and I am happy to spend the time cleaning and restoring them to original condition (we cannot afford to have a professional to do this)

My only worry is that when friends of ours tried to remove their old flooring to reveal the quarries, the whole family went down sick for ages, and they decided it was because of getting the current floor up, and revealing all sorts of mouldy spores or what have you underneath.

Is there a way I can avoid this at all? is there anything i can buy to avoid having to poison my family with years of mouldy growth?

Any help would be most appreciated

Thanks, Amy

 

[ladylola]

If I'm reading this correctly you are saying that your quarried floor has some sort of covering that you suspect harbours fungal spores and what have you?
It's never a bad idea to wear gloves and a mask to lft old floor coverings. If you are unduly worried and the covering is as you say vinly give it a wipe over with diluted bleach first and again mop afterwards with bleach, it stinks but will kill anything nasty lurking there.
I'd also advise doing the job with the doors and windows open to ventilate the house as you work if it's possible to get a through draught although be sure to close any other doors to other rooms.
Our house was filthy when we moved in with really manky vinly in the kitchen over quarries, two layers to be exact.
The hallway was even worse, three layers of carpet plus an underlay and the folks before us had kept dogs ( I counted 22 at least when we viewed ) so you can imagine the stench when that final layer came up! However, the tiles underneath were loverly , a patterned quarry affair. Some needed replacing , standard reds we picked up at Wickes I think and we managed to find replacements for the creams burgundys and browns at a reclaimation yard.

 

[Aymz1983]

yes, having just had a look where some has already been pulled up (we removed a botched breakfast bar) theres at least 3 layers of something..looks like floor over floor so all old vinyl plus the resins? Was just worried in case, being in the kitchen, over the years it did harbour any nasty bugs or whatnot.

But will wear gloves and a mask just in case, and will try good old fashioned bleach then, perhaps after every layer should do the trick. Thanks for the quick response