Removing tile thinset

Scraper and elbow grease

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Scraper and elbow grease

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sometimes that's just not an option.
in my old house i had two little sections of tile. one section was easily removed by scraper and elbow grease. The other was impossible to get out with a scraper and elbow grease, and i had to rent the big arse scraper to get that one off, and it left my entire house in a huge cloud of dust everywhere.

if you couldn't get it off with the machine you rented, you either rented the wrong machine or you simply didn't do it right when you were using it.

LINK

This is the machine they had.

hammer and a wide chisel will get it, but its a PITA for us old farts so its best to hire a young guy to do it for ya and well worth the cost

Just go over the tile in the future. Literally all the flooring pros throw vinyl planks over tile. So much easier.

You can rent the jackhammer on a cart and thinset blade from like a suncoast for around $180/ day I believe. Its more expensive then the hand held but a hell of a lot more powerful and easier to use since its on a cart. If you only have like a bathroom to do don't do that. But I did about 1000sq ft in a weekend fairly easily with it.

You just have to use the thinset blade and take your time. It works up, just not always easily. Make sure you are working at around a 45 degree angle.

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It's a chipping hammer. It may help him get the tool he really needs.

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The one I’ve used is literally a Jack hammer. I’m not in commercial demolition but it’s literally called a Jack hammer at the rental store on a cart:
Jack hammer

I have 6” spiral diamond blade from HD... about $50. Put it on my Dewalt metal grinder and knocked out the master bath (140 sq ft) in about 45 minutes. Talking down to concrete and smooth. Have to wear heavy leather gloves and a breather because dust is horrendous. Stuck a big fan in the window and sucked air out of room and outside during the grinding and subsequent cleanup.

Just ripped out 1400sf of tile a few months ago.
I had a SDS+ drill from a previous project and bought a 4” floor scraper from Amazon to use with it. I ended up going through 2 blades in less than 300sf...

So I bought a SDS max drill that can use the bigger bits, including the heavy duty 6” scraper. The scraper does a fantastic job on thinset, but I used a smaller tile chisel to pull up the tile itself. Trying to use the scraper to pull up the tile will result in the blade breaking.

I also splurged on a concrete grinder with a dust shroud that connected to a shop vac I ran outside the house via a long spa hose and no filter. Worked great to get the slab smooth.

LINK

I had about a 12 square foot hearth area in front of my fireplace to do. Just that small area was horrendous. I can't imagine doing an entire room. I think I'd skim coat over the entire thing if I had to do a whole room. I was amazed at how well thinset stuck to a concrete slab.