Question - can anyone help? I am putting down a ceramic tile floor in the basement that has two layers of glued down vinyl tiles over the concrete. Since they existing flooring is tightly glued and undamaged, can I put the ceramic tile over them or do I have to scrape the vinyl and glue off first? Thanks for any help you can give - Shel shelperkins (at) cox.net
Doing it the right way does involve removing the layers of vinyl. Stop trying to be lazy.
The vinyl must be solid. You MUST get the wax (Shine) of the vinyl before laying down tile.
You might want to consider using one of the elastomeric anti-crack products like "Flex-Guard"
Also, with two layers of "vinyl tile" on the floor it's possible that at least one of them is old enough that it might be *asbestos* tile or have been installed with an asbestos containing mastic.
One red flag for possible asbestos floor tile is a 9"x9" size, another is an appearance like one of these:
Michael Thomas, Paragon Home Inspection, LLC, Chicago IL mdtATparagoninspectsDOTcom
Get a flexible glue that will stick to vinyl tile and you'll be fine.
My professional tile installer sanded the no-wax (shiny) vinyl and installed the ceramic tile right over it. Been looking good for 12 years. Just make sure the sub-strata of the vinyl in solid and firm.
As with so many materials, the problem is not sticking the ceramic to the Vinyl/VCT. The problem is that you will have an expensive and labor intensive floor that is at the mercy of how well the other material is stuck to the subfloor and what the subfloor is.
For tile and marble questions I would highly recommend this site:
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