removing ceramic tile AND thinset from concrete - quickest best way?

[dave]

need to remove approx 900 sq feet of tile -and- the thinset* under it from the top of a concrete slab. purpose being to turn a small apartment into a workshop for myself. I have lots of -very- heavy wheeled machines, and handle big steel in there all day long, so leaving the tile on 'just wouldn't be workable'. I also have a "tree root chopper" thing, a sort of huge 5 foor long inch-diameter long straight crowbar, with a 'straight axe head' at one end....

so, how best to proceed? also got chisels, hammers of all sizes, a pneumatic muffler chisel. I suppose there's no 'practical' way of saving the tile (or is there?) the slab is approx six inches thick.

how are tasks like this 'ordinarily' done? using what tools? are there huge electric jackhammers I can rent that might be 'way faster' for this type stuff?

thanks for advice,

toolie

*don't have to remove ALL the thinset, just enough so that it won't be forever 'breaking down into dust-sized pieces' all the time when I roll iron-wheeled machines over it...and drop huge steel beams on it, and stuff like that...

[Eric in North TX]

I wonder how a couple of these:

do?

[Thomas Kendrick]

I recently had to remove some tile and thinset for a retiling situation. I already had a Bosch 11224VSR rotary hammer that I obtained reconditioned. Got a chisel bit at the local home center for about $15. It worked fine for the few tile I had to do (< 10). Weighs only 6.5 pounds. You might want to rent a more heavy-duty chipping hammer, stopping at the 35 pound unit, electrically powered. I would advise working at a low angle to the floor so you just hit the edges of the tiles and do not create divots in the concrete by removing more than just the thinset. Over time, the steel wheels will break up the ridges in the thinset created when the tile was laid.

[EXT]

OR when finished, rent a floor grinder to take the thinset lumps and ridges down to the concrete. The result will be like a poor man&#39;s version of terrazzo.

[Italian]

[No]

10CFM at 90PSI is a lot of air. Unless you have a very large compressor your couldn&#39;t use this tool.