I would like to remove my kitchen tiles with a view to painting over most of the area and only tiling a smaller area. I think the area behind the tiles are plasterboard.
I would be grateful for advice on how difficult it would be to do this job. I probably wouldn't do it myself but how much labour/materials would be required to do this? The kitchen base and wall units would be getting replaced at the same time.
Tricky. You will probably take patches of skim from the plasterboards and therefore the new paint will be blotchy unless you are very careful removing them. Sometimes tiles are very lightly put on and they may just come away easily in which case you can sand the wall after they are removed but its unlikely. When tilers put up tiles they dont put them up to come down easily. As for time about an hour or two to take them down with a bolster and hammer to do it gently prising the tiles without digging at the slab. With luck they could come down in ten minutes if lightly put up. If the wall is rough after you remove them, it may be best to retile it in your new colours to get a good finish.
If this is what tyiou really DO wantto do, they come off in s few minutes with a bolter and ckub hammer, and some of teh wall will come with them. So it will absolutely need a re-skim.
Don;t let anyone tell you that by taking 25 hours per tile they can get them off without damaging the surface. Trust someone who says '5 minutes to get em down, but a days worth of skimming and making good before its suitable to paint'.
Have recently (last Sunday) done this in my bathroom. Took most of the morning for 2 walls and a windows sill. Using cold chiesel and hammer they actually came off better than I was expecting. Some making up to do with plaster skim on the plasterboard walls. But it all wnet ok. As the other poster says do it gently, but firmly!!
Dave
It's almost infinitely variable. It depends on the material behind, and on the adhesive used, and the quality of the original workmanship.
Plywood behind usually stands up to tile removal better than plasterboard.
If it's plasterboard, then you have a full range of possibilities from them more or less falling off, through minor ripping of the plasterboard surface through to total demolition of the plasterboard.
I've had a couple of the total demolition cases here recently.
Be prepared for worst case of having to cut out some damaged plasterboard sections, replace, tape and skim. If you're lucky, it may not come to that.
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