Restoring geometric tiled Victorian front garden path

[JohnF]

I posted here quite a while ago about the manky old concrete path in the front garden of my London terraced house ... finally got round to taking it up when, lo and behold, underneath is the original geometric tiled path (small, coloured tiles in a "Grafham" design). Over 90% of the tiles are fine, mostly still stuck down to the base, but the base/ foundation has cracked and shifted, so it's a case of re-laying the path on a new base.

This was confirmed by a pro company I asked to quote, who said it would be too labour intensive for them to salvage/reuse the tiles on my limited budget. So, in the spirit of UK d-i-y, I'm going to try to do it myself. I will need to remove the tiles, clean them and get some matching replacements, lay a new foundation, and re-lay the tiles. Any advice please on:

1) removing the old tiles which are still firmly stuck to the old concrete/mortar base layer ("gentle" use of hand-held cold-chisel?) 2) cleaning dirt and concrete residue from the top surfaces of the tiles? (Acid brick cleaner or a more "sophisticted" cleaner from someone like HG, followed by wet and dry abrasive? One old post here talked about using a carborundum stone and water) 3) removing big globs of concrete/mortar stuck to the bottoms of the tiles - i.e., can I chemically or otherwise break the bond between a tile and the old mortar it was bedded in, or somehow "shave off" most of the old mortar/cement? (Someone suggested to me using an electric tile cutting saw to get off most of this, but holding 2"x2" tiles vertically upright against a fast saw blade sounds rather unsafe) 4) do I need a DPM under the new concrete sub-base? 5) I also need a new York stone front gate step, which needs to have corners rounded at the front and also be notched to fit round the flanking brick pillars - is cutting this a d-i-y-able job, or should I make a template and pay a pro/supplier for a York stone cut to shape?

Many thanks for any advice whatsoever.

John

[chudford]

Hi John I refurbished my Son's front path in his victorian house. I cleaned the old cement off the surface of the tiles using Jenolite rust remover which I had in the garage, this worked well. I gently chiselled the old mortar off the backs, it came away quite easily without damaging the tiles. I guess it was a fairly weak lime mix. The local salvage yard had lots of victorian tiles, so replacing the damaged ones was easy. I levelled the path with a dry 4 to 1 sand/cement mix and laid the tiles on this. Then filled the gaps with the same mix. This was over a year ago and the path is still fine.

[Stuart Noble]

The saw was the first thing that came to my mind, but you'd need a jig of some kind to hold the tile, the depth of cut would need to be over an inch, and you'd need at least two fairly flat edges on a 2" x 2" tile.

I find a 2" paint scraper whacked with a claw hammer is often better than a cold chisel/club hammer. More chance of a clean break.

You might get lucky, but IME tiles and concrete are usually inseparable.

[Andy Dingley]

Easy, but takes _ages_

Hydrochloric ("brick") acid cleans them.

Bitumen is very hard to clean off completely. Heat "gets it flat", but nothing seems to make them "clean" on the visible surface.

New tiles are dead easy to find, so long as you want terracotta or black. Pale ones generally need to be recycled from salvage yards, but there are plenty around. Brand new encaustics (two shot coloured moulding) warrant a trip to the tile museum at Jacksfield up the Severn Valley (be warned - that place can get expensive!)

Buy a powered wet-disk tile cutter. Plasplugs is OK, chromed steel top model is bad, Aldi's big one with the big overhead disk is best of all (cheapies). Angle grinder gets used in corners, but really you're best doing it wet.

Sub-base is crucial. Read the paving expert site

Peg your straight lines out at dusk, using a cheap laser.

[Phil L]

You'll be lucky to save 10% of them - they snap like glass at the sight of a chisel

Acid and wire brush, then acid again, rinse and repeat.

it's up to you, and also depends on where the path will meet the wall of your house and where the DPC is.

You can cut it with a 9in angle grinder and round of the corners manually