Tips and Tricks to Remove Travertine Floor Tiles

Tips and Tricks to Remove Travertine Floor Tiles

17 May 2022

Table Of Contents

Travertine floor tiles transform the aesthetics of your place effortlessly. The warm, subtle shades of this natural stone exude elegance and grace. Being a heavy stone, installation of Travertine pool pavers and floor tiles takes some effort. We can imagine how removing them sounds like a tedious task. It may get intimidating if you have the wrong tools and you follow incorrect techniques. This blog post intends to share tricks and tips to remove these flooring tiles without harming the floor tiles. Here are the important instructions to follow:

Gather your tools

Needless to mention, your tools and safety gear should be ready before your work begins. Make a checklist of the items that you require.

You would need a hammer, a chisel, a floor scraper or hammer drill, sturdy work gloves, and a pair of safety glasses. Adding a mask to the list would also be wise since you would be exposed to tons of dust.

Not just tools, you also need to grab some plastic sheets to protect your home from dust.

Prepare the area

The entire task of breaking and pulling out Travertine floor tiles will gather a lot of dust in your house. Make sure you cover your doorways, furniture, electronic appliances, and air vents. If dust gets into the air conditioner ducts, you will have a tough time getting rid of them.

It would be sensible to remove the baseboards as well. If you remove the baseboards first, the tiles come out much faster. Just mark the back of the boards to help you put them back in their original place later.

Finally, remove heavy appliances or furniture from the workable floor area.

The task

Before you start working on the tiles, you must work on the grout line. A Grout line is a mixture of concrete and sand which hardens over time.

  • Examine the edges of the tiles floor. Start with the tiles that have exposed edges or those that are cracked/broken. It is easy to work with tiles with two exposed sides in the corners.
  • The tile removing tool or chisel's flat blade is to be placed against the edge of the tile. Push the blade forcing it between the wall or floor and the back of the tile.
  • Tap the chisel with a club hammer and continue tapping it, directing the blade behind the tile. Gradually the tile will loosen and start to lift away from the surface. With the help of the tool, set the tile free, using the tool as a lever. Save the tiles in a safe space to reuse them later.
  • Use this technique for the whole surface. However, it will be rather difficult to hit the tiles that are close to the cabinets or along the wall. The sledgehammer does more harm than good in these places. In these spots, it is advisable to use a hammer drill.
  • If you don't want to save the existing Travertine Tiles, hit on the tiles in the middle. Then use the chisel along the grout lines to separate the tiles. After you clear out a good space, use the floor scraper to eventually remove the rest of the tiles.
  • Once all tiles have been removed, use a hammer drill to scrape off the layer of the thin-set. This step needs to be complete before the new flooring is laid. In the end, smoothen the floor with a floor scraper.
  • When the thin-set and tiles are pulled out, vacuum the floor to clear off leftover dust or debris. We recommend following this up with light mopping.

Hope this proves to be useful whenever you plan to remove Travertine floor tiles. Take necessary precautions while doing this job and remember to cover up with plastic sheets. Whichever natural stone you choose to install on the floors later, use a good quality adhesive and seal the stones.

*Disclaimer: All information and advice given above in the blog are to the best of our knowledge. Please reconfirm at your end before execution.

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*Disclaimer: All information and advice given above in the blog are to the best of our knowledge. Please reconfirm at your end before execution.

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