Removing Wonderboard

[tioga 0630]

I watched Ron Hazelton's House Calls this weekend, and he parodied the work of ripping up his wife's huge tile floor and replacing it with tongue-and-groove.

He said a diamond-tipped blade on a circular saw will rip through the grout AND the underlayment, but I need to know if a blade like this would rip through wonderboard.

Also, what is the typical width of wonderboard, so that I'd know what depth to set the blade angle at? The tile was laid in the mid/early

90's, when the homeowner was told that once wonderboard was there, "you'll never rip the floor up again."

That, of course, presupposed the homeowner would never WANT to rip it up, and now she does. And I'm the one who'd going to have to do the ripping.

[berkshire bill]

The blade should do the trick. Bore a hole to measure how deep you will have to go to get through the materials.

Bill

[Greg]

The manufacturer says you should be wearing a respirator when you use power tools on Wonderboard. Evidently the dust is nasty stuff

[rednelb]

Sure is... make your throat hurt for days!!

[Charles Spitzer]

it's mostly concrete, so it's pretty alkaline. it's usually 1/2" thick. you can get a handheld diamond bladed 4" wet saw. makita makes one. it cuts down on the dust tremendously. you're going to get a lot of dust from the grout and tile too. i'd seal off the room well if it were me.

[Greg]

I think it is mostly styrofoam bound together with concrete, wrapped in fiber cloth. I had no problem cutting it with a regular combo carbide blade on my table saw. It goes real fast.

[JerryMouse]

I'd paint over it.

[tioga 0630]

Charles, Greg, everyone, thanks. I'm just trying to figure out if the tile--not the old 4" x 4", but the big new size Hazelton's wife had--would really be too difficult to pick up with a hammer and chisel.

Mom let a supply valve on a toilet drip maybe for years in a powder room adjacent to the main bathroom before I noticed it, and the black mold under the tiny old tile there was a sight to behold. Now I want to completely redo the bath/powder room, 'cause together them form a

12' x 12' square. Does Wonderboard grow mold? I know it's a stupid question, but Mom's in love with this crappy big tile, and the only way I figure of getting her to agree to tear it up is to tell her there's black mold under it, too.

Thanks again, everyone.

[Charles Spitzer]

tile/wonderboard/etc don't grow or provide nutrients for growing mold. however, it could be there as there probably are small channels in the thinset used to place the tiles which could be populated by mold. the only way to tell is to take one up, and then you only know about at that location. tell her you have to take them all up to check. lol

you can bust up the tile with hammer and chisel, level out the wonderboard with a thin layer of thinset, and retile. you can also take up the wonderboard down to whatever is under it too, but likely it's screwed and glued/cemented down and you're going to damage the next layer too.

[tioga 0630]

Crap-a-doodle-doo, this is what I think's the case too. So then there's no answer to the problem? I mean, I'd have to tear everything down to the subflooring so that I'd be swinging from the joists?

I'm asking seriously, 'cause Mom always crows about how when she put her wonderboard down, the guy said "this'll last forever. Nothing'll ever make this loose." Now I know wonderboard is called wonderboard because it doesn't let tiles get loose, but what kind of cement names could I ask Mom if she remembers? ( A *BIG* "IF"!)