Old Victorian tiles covered by vinyl floor tiles

[welsh]

Hi, i live in a victorian house split into 5 flats. we have awful balck and white tiles on the floor in the hall. in a cupboard we can see the oringal lovely victorian tiles. My question is how can we remove these tiles and the glue underneath to see what the state of the tiles are like. The current floor tiles are quick thick and crack up. there seems to be lots of yellow dried glue though which was used to stick them down is a product to remove this and not damage the original tiles?

Many thanks

 

[gcol]

How big an area are we talking about?

 

[welsh]

hmmm, its the entrance hall so its probably 5 foot wide by 10 foot. roughly as its not square

cheers

 

[gcol]

Well you need to scrape the vinyl tiles up with a floor scraper. Then use a hot air gun to soften the adhesive and scrape up with a small sraper. Any glue residue remaining will need to be cleaned up with a scouring pad and solvent thinners. Not a nice job ahead of you.

 

[welsh]

hmmm doesnt sound like fun, would a normal builder be able to do this or would it need to be a specilist? Would you know about costs for someone to do this etc ?

cheers

 

[welsh]

i have had a go tongiht to pick off the vinyl floor tiles, the yellow stuff must be glue what is the grey stuff? its like grout or concrete would this have been laid on top of the nice tiles ?!?

http://xs314.xs.to/xs314/07172/IMG_2846.JPG

http://xs314.xs.to/xs314/07172/IMG_2845.JPG

http://xs314.xs.to/xs314/07172/IMG_2850.JPG

 

[gcol]

To be honest, it's not that clear what the situation is from such a small sample. What you can see though is that the tiles underneath don't seem to be in to good a condition. It could be that someone has skimmed over damaged or sunk tiles and then stuck the vinyl tiles on top. From what I've seen so far, I'd be thinking about forgetting trying to salvage the old tiles and rip the lot up and start a fresh. It would cost you a fair bit to get someone to take that floor up to try and reveal the old tiles without causing damage of some sort and I think you might be disappointed with the result.