Our laundry rooom floor has that 1-inch square ceramic tile glued to plywood. It's over a crawlspace, if that matters. The little squares are coming lose in a couple of the high-traffic areas but they've been there at least 30 years so I guess they were fairly durable.
The kitchen/dining-room floor was similar, but ceramic pebble shapes, not squares. When I replaced them several years back, I used an ice chipper on a pole to remove the tiles, then sanded the glue residue and put a layer of luan down, sticking vinyl tiles over the luan. It's held up well, no problems.
I'd rather not chip off the ceramic tiles in the laundry room as it's hard, dirty and frustrating work. Instead, I thought about filling in the two small areas where the ceramic squares are missing with Top and Bond or something similar. After that dries, I'll glue luan or 1/4" plywood directly to the ceramic tiles then put the vinly tile on top of that.
I checked the door and there's plenty of clearance for this approach. It seems that if the tiles are under sheets of plywood the stress of walking over them would be spread over a wide area so they shouldn't come loose underneath. Two questions:
- Any flaws in my logic?
- What sort of adhesive would you use to stick plywood to ceramic tiles?
Paul