Removing ceramic bathroom tiles with underfloor heating

[JApplewhite]

I'm trying to remove large ceramic tiles from a bathroom floor due to a suspected leak.

The floor is tiles stuck to hardboard or similar over a thin foiled insulation layer on top of the original floor boards. Somewhere within the floor is plastic pipe used to heat the floor.

Now I'm trying to get these up but they are just chipping and fracturing. The adhesive is black/grey and still slightly flexible. No matter what I try I (prisebar, narrow chissel, wide chisel) can't get them up in any real size, most of it is just chippings. It's incredibly hard going in this heat.

I did try and locate what is holding the boards down with a view to taking the tiles up still on the board but the foil backed insulation is confusing the detector.

Is there any easy way of getting them up?

P.S. I just wish the previous owners had not bothered with DIY.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Normally with a leak in a bathroom, you will check the toilet pipe work. The in coming water supply and the joint between the pan and the cistern and the pan connector. You will need to check the basin taps are not leaking under the basin and running down to the floor, also check the basin waste pipe and trap. Then take off the bath panel and check under there.

If the leak is coming through the ceiling below, I always cut a small square section out from the ceiling and go from there.

Andy