My tiler is leveling floor on old adhesive which he can't remove. Is this safe to do?

Jack_Bauer

Hi,

I recently purchased a property and the existing kitchen floor porcelain tiles are all moving/cracking and therefore I am getting the floor re-done.
My tiler today ripped up all the tiles and noticed that the previous installer put some sort of adhesive all over the wood and then for some reason dot and dabbed the tiles with more adhesive onto the spread out adhesive.
He claims that the lack of ditra mat (uncoupling membrance) and the dot and dab technique is what caused the previous tiles to fail.

Below is what was unearthed:

My tiler is planning on leaving the floor as you can see in that picture because he claims he is unable to get anything further off the wooden floor. He has used power tools but he said it doesn't come off.
He is planning to use a deep fill floor leveller onto this existing material to level the floor, then apply ditra matt with electric heating, and then finally grout the tiles on the ditra mat using flexible adhesive and flexible grout, ensuring full coverage.

My question is, should I be concerned that the existing material is not all being removed and that he is leveling the floor onto the existing rock like adhesive he is unable to remove? I assumed he would have to go to the wood and start from scratch.
He has perfect reviews online from 50+ happy customers and has been tiling for 11+ years. He claims there should be nothing to be concerned about, aside from a small increase in the height level of the floor. He is adamant that there will be no future issues with his technique and guarantees his work.

Can I get some advice on if his strategy is correct and if not, what can I say to him because he said he tried several power tools and it simply won't come off. He doesn't know exactly what product was used previously but that it is rock solid. He does not appear concerned at all, claims if he is wrong, his reputation would be untatters and wouldn't risk a negative online review. That I should trust him.

Any expert tilers here that can put my mind at ease?

Thanks

andyhop

Screed, ditra , adhesive plus a tile, your never going to get your appliances out . Threshold on the other door doesn’t look too high either 

What is the original floor? Is it timber or concrete ? 

What he’s proposing isn’t a bodge but if the floor has flex no amount of S2 adhesive and decoupling mat will sort this 

Grenage

Height would also be my concern, but short of pulling the floor up what can one do?

Out of curiosity, 50 happy customers on where?

grumbler

I don't like the idea of raising tiles level around the units. appliances (and, seemingly, the skirting board) either.

And I think anything can be removed from wood. The only question is time and cost.

What is it  dark red coloured in the photo?

Jack_Bauer

Thanks all for the responses.

The dark red is wood as far as we could tell. The previous owners did mention they got the floor made solid and leveled for their kitchen as part of their renovations 6 years ago. I don't really think there is a way we can gauge flex is there?

I certainly don't want any job done whereby I can't get my appliances out. That's ridiculous if that's the strategy. They're 5 years old already and may need replaying soon. I'll speak to him but what should I say exactly in terms of his strategy? What should be done so this job is done properly

He has 50+ perfect reviews on RatedPeople. He also sounded the most clued on out of any tiler that has come to my house if I am honest and has an Instagram page showing all his jobs.

He spent the better part of 8 hours getting the tiles up today to the level you see in the photo.

andyhop

If it’s a timber overlay , a 4ft crowbar and brute force will do the job
A breaker gun and sharp chisel should get the adhesive up , it’ll be slow work but worth the effort even if it increases costs 

Jack_Bauer

Hi all,

I've just taken some more pictures. The dark red is definitely wood. The whole floor seems to have been covered in hardwood before tiled by the previous owners.

In terms of the concerns around height, I have been taking a look at my appliances and there seems to be some clearance at the top of both of them. The appliances are likely old since they came with the property so will need to be changed at some point in the future so this is of course a concern for me.

Based on the clearance, and the fact the tiler only expects the height to rise a little if at all, I guess I should be ok since the clearance will mean the appliances should be able to come out? Pictures below. What do you reckon?

FreeBear

Back of fag packet calculation (based on 10mm thick tiles), I'd reckon on a height gain of 25mm. Broken down - 3mm for self leveling compound, 3mm of adhesive, 5.5-7.5mm for the heated Ditra, 5-8mm of adhesive, then the tiles.

It looks like the original tiles have been laid on top of a sheet of plywood - If this is the case, then a crowbar + grunt work should get it up fairly cleanly. Then you can make a decision on what to do next. Looks like the original tiles go right under the units & appliances - This may well make things a little more interesting (problematic) if it is indeed plywood under that mess.

phoebe1989seb

It does look like it might be plywood. Hopefully it won't be glued (as well as screwed) down as the ply was that we inherited from our previous owners.

They'd used 'evostick' type adhesive to stick the very thin ply to the old floorboards before tiling. No amount of grunt work with a crowbar was able to remove the glue entirely  and because the ply was so thin, this tore into jagged shards on removal. After hours of painstaking removal we were left with gouged floorboards which in our case we'd been hoping to leave exposed 😡

Raising floor levels around the appliances sounds like an awful idea.

GDB2222

Level it, then some sheet vinyl. Job done. Obviously needs to go under the appliances.

john.h

If as it looks the floor has ply down and tiled before the kitchen was fitted you will never get it up. It also looks like you have about 50mm clearance under your appliances to play with.