Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Removing linoleum?

I'm putting tile in the guest bath, and want to pull the linoleum. Sure, I know it makes a great water barrier for the wonder board, but there's discoloration and I really want to check and see if any of the flooring needs replacing.

Right now, it's basically shredding while being pulled.

Will a heat gun help loosen up the adhesive?

Other ideas?

Hand held floor scraper. Lots of elbow grease. Heat may help and remember a lot of old linoleum contained asbestos.

Big one, gets back/hips doing the bulk of the work. Quick and dirty with the big'un', finish out with a hand-scraper for edge work.

I used to remove asbestos for a living. Even if what you've got has asbestos in it, I wouldn't worry about doing a bathroom. Keep it wet with soapy water as it breaks if you're really worried about it, but I wouldn't.

Heat will help. Scrape up what you can, a long handle will help, then use a heat gun on the tough parts.

Whoever built this house, never saw a corner he couldn't cut.

The vanity top was not held in place on the vanity. The only thing holding it all together was the plumbing and the silicon caulking at the corners where the top met the splash guards. Not a dab of adhesive/caulking

The toilet sits in a low spot (1/4" lower than the floor at the back wall, about a foot away) and wasn't caulked down. So there was a puddle collected there next to the drain. Everything was fine until the boys got old enough to stand up, but not old enough to be sure of their aim. So I'm not sure if it's good or bad news, but the particle board underlayment needs to be either gone, or at least replaced in the area near the toilet. My thoughts are that it should be gone, so we'll have less of a height difference with the carpet in the hallway once the wonder board and tile are in place. Is my logic off?

Yeah, you need to get rid of the particle board. When it gets wet it stays wet, think cotton towel. Then that starts rotting subflooring and maybe joists.

Also, if your toilet flanges are plastic, by all means replace them with a PVC flange that has a metal ring for the closet bolts that hold the toilet down.

If you ain't pulled a lot of toilets, save yourself some grief and don't use a wax seal. Get that "donut" thing that Fluidmaster makes, it is no leak/no fail.

Cool - the vanity is out, so I've got nice gap to start prying on to get the underlayment out.


TAK - I assume you mean this thing:
http://www.fluidmaster.com/our-prod...gaskets/toilet-wax-free-bowl-gasket.html


Anyone else use and recommend those? I'd typically just use two wax rings. One with the flange, one without.


Thanks all!

Heat gun will help a bunch

I sure wish you the best, and there must be a better way, but I tore the plywood floor up on a kitchen a few years ago.

That's it. I'm a carpenter, not a plumber. Plumbers don't have any trouble with wax rings, but I've never heard of using two. Not having a callback was worth the extra $ to me.

You can get an extra thick, or maybe it's extra tall, wax ring. I just installed one.

Get a wax ring with a "no seep" rubber flange that sticks down into the soil pipe.

You can also get a riser for your closet flange, if the toilet sits a little low.

I like to replace the plywood and particle board and treat the new subfloor with Thompson's water seal.

Also, I like to bolster the area underneath the toilet with additional cross-members to the floor joists and I use pressure-treated lumber for that.

Also, I'm sold on Fluid-Master flapper valves and fill-valve assemblies.

What do you do if the mastic also contains asbestos?

i've scraped up 1000s of sq yds of linoleum, i peel off the wear layer and any backing that comes up with it. then i soak the rest with warm water and scrape it up with a razor blade scraper.

Wear a mask, be careful, and don't tell ANYBODY about it. Dump the stuff somewhere you don't have to answer questions.

the adhesive shouldn't have asbestos unless its z cutback but that was used primarily for vinyl composite tile.if it was originally laid after the late 70s i wouldn't worry about asbestos.

cut back is black and looks like tar.

Warm soapy water and a lot of effort with the scraper.

Sweet mercy! I'm a big believer in "Do it once the right way, and never do it again." But unless the subfloor looks like it's in sad shape, it's staying in. Though I'll keep that in mind when we redo the master bath.

How well does thinset adhere to flooring that's had Thompsons's applied?

you need to put hardy board over the wood, use thinset with the latex additive.

I've never used Thinset so I can't answer your question. I did two bathrooms using Thompson and then just got some of the Armstrong 12"-square floor tiles and installed them on the particle board. The adhesive seem to stick just fine.