# Rookie needs advice - How to remove old thinset from concrete floor?



## rookie floor layer

Yes I'm new..sitting in my once beautiful livingroom that had 700 sq ft of tile.. Now all gone.. something happened.. buckled and came up.. Thin set is now very firmly on cement slab..( I think it was the the initial layeing of the the tile as I have no moisture issues)
I'm trying to figure out what I should install.. What I hear is whatever I choose.. I need to remove the thinset and make the surface smooth..

What is the secret of thin set removal on concrete slab??There's gotta be a better answer than that heavy drill, chipper.. dust thingy??


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## 26yrsinflooring

rookie floor layer said:


> Yes I'm new..sitting in my once beautiful livingroom that had 700 sq ft of tile.. Now all gone.. something happened.. buckled and came up.. Thin set is now very firmly on cement slab..( I think it was the the initial layeing of the the tile as I have no moisture issues)
> I'm trying to figure out what I should install.. What I hear is whatever I choose.. I need to remove the thinset and make the surface smooth..
> 
> What is the secret of thin set removal on concrete slab??There's gotta be a better answer than that heavy drill, chipper.. dust thingy??


 
A hammer drill with a chisel bit loud dusty heavy thingy...
Good set of work gloves, dust mask and plenty of time......

Hope you didnt plan to have company for Thanksgiving.....unless they are coming to help!


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## JazMan

Rookie,

If you install ceramic tiles again, it may be possible to leave the old thinset in place. Only this time have it installed correctly, and you won't have any problems.

What were you considering to install now?

Jaz


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## rookie floor layer

*Mess*

Iv'e had a few people looking at this job.. some say I need only to level the floor and fill in the holes with a leveleling agent.. I'm planning on putting laminate down..do I have to go the chisel way??


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## 26yrsinflooring

Some of Mapie's Novoplane 2 might work ya if you are gonna bring it up for laminate.


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## JazMan

You're gonna go with laminate?  OK, it's your place.

Any self leveling or Portland cement based patching compound will work as long as all you have is trowel ridges and no high spots. Any high spots need to be ground down. This process may raise the floor a bit, shouldn't be much however. Otherwise you can rent a concrete scarifier like one of these. http://images.search.yahoo.com/sear...concrete scarifier&fr2=tab-web&fr=yfp-t-501-s

Jaz


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## Bud Cline

You can rent a floor grinder that will remove the thinset nicely while leaving the original substrate in tact.


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## Nestor_Kelebay

26yrsinflooring said:


> A *hammer drill* with a chisel bit loud dusty heavy thingy...
> Good set of work gloves, dust mask and plenty of time......


I don't want to change the topic of this thread...
I just want to put in this blurb for any newbies that might be reading this thread and wondering if they can do this kind of work if they just bought one of the new cordless hammer drills they've seen at Home Depot.

There are different kinds of "hammer drills". The corded or cordless hammer drills that look very similar to corded or cordless regular drills are called "percussion" type hammer drills, and my guess is that they would be totally useless in trying to remove thin set from concrete (even if they did have a "hammer only" mode, which they almost certainly won't). These drills work OK in softer masonary materials like brick, mortar, concrete blocks and soft rocks like limestone or marble, but they're not made for drilling into harder materials like concrete or harder rocks like granite. Typically, these percussion type hammer drills use an ordinary drill chuck to hold a special "masonary" style drill bit (that has a characteristic tungsten carbide chip at it's business end).

The kind of hammer drills made for drilling into concrete and hard rock are called "rotary hammers" and they have a piston and cylinder arrangement inside them that moves the drill bit back and forth 1/8 of an inch (or so) with each rotation of the drill bit. That essentially "batters" a hole in the masonary, and the spiral flutes are there to remove the crushed material.

26yearsinflooring was referring to a "rotary hammer" which is a kind of hammer drill. Think of it as a percussion type hammer drill on steroids.

Rotary hammers can't use a regular drill chuck because key-type chucks are press fit together and the hammering action of the rotary hammer will shake a regular drill chuck apart. Rotary hammers will most commonly use something called an "SDS" chuck, which was introduced by Bosch and stands for "Insert, Twist, Stay", but in German those words translate to "Steck, Dreh, Sitz", hence, SDS. For marketing purposes internationally, Bosch uses the SDS to stand for "Special Direct System" which kinda says and means nothing at all, kinda like Barack Obama's "Change We Can Believe In". (What, really, does that mean? Anyone know?)

This web page shows the cross sectional view of an SDS chuck:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_%28engineering%29

SDS chucks don't open and close like a regular drill bit chuck to accomodate the size of the drill bit. Instead, a set of SDS masonary drill bits will have different diameters but the ends will all be the same size to fit properly in the SDS chuck. You insert the drill bit and then rotate a collar on the drill chuck 1/4 turn. This causes two ball bearings to fit into two short grooves in the end of the drill bit. That design allows the chuck to firmly twist the drill bit, while at the same time allowing it to move forward and backward with every rotation of the bit. It's the fact that the drill bit has a powerful hammering action to it that allows rotary hammers to drill into hard masonary so much faster than percussion type hammer drills (where the drill bit just kinda "shakes" back and forth an ever-so-tiny bit).

Most rotary hammers ALSO have a rotate only and hammer only mode on them so that you can use them to drill into wood or steel, and as electric chisels.

And, you probably won't find a set of SDS regular twist drill bits for drilling into wood or steel. That's cuz such a set would cost more than an "adapter", which is best described as an ordinary key-type chuck mounted on the base of an SDS drill bit.
http://www.toolbarn.com/product/bosch/1618571014/
You put the rotary hammer in "rotate only" mode, put the adapter in the SDS chuck, and then put an ordinary drill bit in the adapter so you can use the SDS rotary hammer in rotate only mode to drill holed into wood or steel using much less expensive ordinary twist drill bits. (that is, non-SDS drill bits)

You can also get bigger hammer drills that use a spline drive so that the bits have splined ends, but I know squat about them.

So, not all "hammer drills" will do the kind of work 26years is talking about.


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## 26yrsinflooring

I agree Nestor perhaps I should have clarified the term


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## ceramictec

good informative post Nestor.
we use a small chipping hammer with a flat wide bit.









here in Tampa, Florida we rip up the tile, clean and make sure there is no loose thinset and dust, prime with a primer and either re-float with a multi purpose thinset or use an SLC.

here is one we just did with SLC and installed marble on it.


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