water damage to vinyl tile

[wf3h]

had a minor flood in the basement bathroom. vinyl floor tiles lifted. what's the best way to re-install them?

[John]

Quick answer ... there is none ... you wont like the cure but ...

Scrape them off your floor, clean the concrete underneath and lay real tile. It will improve the value of your home and look so much nicer. Be sure and mix real mortar to lay them, not the ready mix glue they try to push off at the big box stores.

Unfortunately basements can be leaky and are inherently damp, deal with it permanently.

John

[wf3h]

thanks john...may do that

[HeyBub]

You can buy cement/glue used for non-pre-glued tile. It does a pretty good job.

I'm with John on tiling the floor for real. Shop around for the cheapest ceramic tile you can find. The best commercial prices I've found are at Floor & Decor outlets - about $0.66/sq ft.

I've done only four rooms, so I'm no expert; I watched a few YouTube videos and picked up a few tricks.

• I own a 12" tile cutter which doesn't work for squat on 13" tiles. An angle grinder with a ceramic blade does an adequate job.

*Thinset is an excellent transition material when going from one level to another, say tile to vinyl. It smooths nicely and is stronger than dirt.

• Like any other flooring, remove the baseboards before tiling. Use this opportunity to patch and repaint them.

• Instead of the little foam X's to get the distance between the tiles correct, I used 3/8" dowel rods.

[wf3h]

thanks much, bub. may have to go this route

[HeyBub]

Good luck. It's a full two week-end job, but the results will be worth it.

Oh, one more tip: You may find that the existing tiles just won't, goddamn it, come up! You can get a scraper blade for your reciprocating saw that will make the job, well, just trivial! The blade turns your Sawzall into a power scraper. Zoom, zoom, zoom.

The blade can be found next to the other Sawzall blades at your box store. About ten bucks and worth every penny (it can even be resharpened with a file for continued use).

[wf3h]

sweet! thanks for the tip heybub