I have ripped up my kitchen floor tiles, which were laid on a chipboard base over wood joists, and am left with an expanse of hard, ridged floor tile cement residue, which I want to remove prior to laying laminate flooring and foam underlay. I have used a scraper-on-a-pole which has moved some of the stuff, but I need a better tool for what is left.
I have an SDS drill with a 5" broad chisel tool, large and small angle grinders and a fibrous "scouring pad" type of disc-wheel, and a range of drill-driven wire brushes. Oh, and a Bosch belt sander...
Yeah, don't make a mess! I doubt the chipboard will survive any of the above methods. Might be easier to replace it, except it probably goes under units etc. Paint stripper should soften the adhesive. It'll stink the place out but it's better than dust any day, and a lot faster.
For the benefit of others who might 'search' this out:
Having ripped up the ceramic kitchen floor tiles using a pry-bar and a small-bladed shovel, I was left with a 3.5m x 3.5m chipboard floor covered with hardened, ridged floor tile cement. I first tried an 6" edged blade-on-a-pole, sold as a specialist tool for the job, which took off the tops of some of the ridges. That's all. Next, I tried a
115mm 'poly abrasive disc', by Silverline, fitted to an angle grinder and both recommended for this job and guaranteed not to clog. It worked well - for about 1/4 square metre. I then discovered that the fibre material and the tile cement dust had clogged-up, overheated, melted half the fibre material of the disc, and large globules of fibre/cement composite had then formed within the disc. Useless.
I then turned to my 1400watt SDS hammer drill, fitting a 75mm chisel blade. This worked well, used at an angle, removing the rock-hard cement ridges down to about 1.0-0.5mm median height - well within the tolerances specifed by the underlay manufacturers. Except it was hard work, taking more than 8-10 hours in work-rest-work phases. Virtually no gouging of the chipboard flooring, except where I mishandled the tool when my arms tired, but I had twice to resharpen the chisel edge on a rotary grinder.
I changed to a 22mm chisel edge tool, for it had a longer shank to reach under the kitchen units - but that *did* gouge swiftly and deeply, so I'm going to repair with some silicone filler or summat, before laying the underlay and laminate flooring.
I concede the SDS drill is a monster, but it's what I have.... and it did the job.
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