DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

We have just had to take up 33 large porcelain tiles due to them coming loose laid over central heating pipes.

We can't source the same new tiles so have to scrape the cement looking adhesive off the 33 13"x13" tiles.

We tried one of them with hammer and chisel and it took nearly all day!

Can anyone suggest which is the best scraper tool to purchase or if there is any chemical softener for this purpose?

We will have a professional tiler to relay the tiles but he said it would take him days to get the tiles to a usable condition.

Any help on this would be SO appreciated.

use a small angle grinder, with a diamond blade, wear googles and a mask it will be messy

Thanks for reply Welsh Brickie,

We got professional help from a tiler and he brought his angle grinder and did the job for us - it must have been the worst job he had undertaken but as we could no longer get the same tiles and they had been laid over the ground floor we had no option.

The problem seemed to be that they were laid over central heating pipes and the adhesive used 12 years ago obviously did not cope with this. Our tiler told us that the stuff these days is heat resistant due to underfloor heating so we are hopeful that we will have no further problems.

Check out our Projects section - we have just the thing including loads of advice on the different ways to remove grout from tiles https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/cleangrout.htm