How to easily remove vinyl tiles

The previous owner of our house, unfortunately, tried to "renovate" and "improve" the recently refinished and refurbished original clear-vertical-grain fir floors by sticking self-adhesive vinyl tiles to them to create "area rugs" of faux parquet and faux marble. After scraping, heating, and using a variety of solvents, I hit upon this far easier and relatively non-toxic method: dry ice.

Step 1 Materials

30 lbs dry ice
waxed or parchment paper
hand towel or rags
small flexible putty knife

Comments

[canida]

This is absolutely brilliant! I wish I'd known this while removing the "improvements" from my previous house's floors - scraping was miserable.
Thank you for sharing.

[aeray]

Thanks. Scraping is definitely miserable, that's what led me to this. I bet you'll remember next time though.

[Dr_Stupid]

What's wrong with the good ol' fashioned elbow-grease method? We have become so LAZY in the 21st century.

[aeray]

I'm no stranger to elbow grease, but I also enjoy using my brain now and then.

[DIY-Guy]

Thanks to the author for a super clean and no-toxic-residue method without solvents!

Lack of brain fluid usually leads people to apply unnecessary amounts of elbow grease.

Fill 'er up, with cerebral fluid please!

[aeray]

Thanks for the comment!

[Sunnedaez]

This is an extraordinary idea and I am going to try it on a job coming up. What was the square footage of the areas of tile you had to remove? The job I have is 6 feet by 12 feet = 72 sqft.. I don't think 30 pounds of dry ice will be enough.

[aeray]

My space was about 8' x 20', so 160sq.ft.

[Keko]

I have done this. The nutcase that put the tiles down used about and inch of glue. It took me an entire weekend to sand it off. Golly.

[jsadler1]

Poisonous is a misleading concept in dealing with CO2. It is true that it kills differently than CO but if you reach a 23% concentration of CO2 it will kill you. Thirty pounds of dry ice in a small room might reach that level.

[aeray]

As I noted, it isn't poisonous, but it can kill you.

[saxmaster765]

Here's a question - Do you think this genius idea could work with 2 layers of vinyl at once? A previous owner poorly did our kitchen floor.

[aeray]

I don't see why not, although you might have to concentrate on one layer at a time. Try it and let me know.

[sampowell]

You can also use a wall paper steamer if the tile is on concrete. You get a bit of water. Use a spatula to pick up the hot, limp tiles. The dry ice method can be expensive.

[saxmaster765]

The only other clean way I can think of doing this is with a heat gun and putty knife. The way you showed us here is the best way, and I plan on trying it. Good job!

[ryry2011]

5 worthless

[aeray]

5* stars for "worthless"? Wow, and petty.

[ryry2011]

what is the point of it

[aeray]

Apparently your reading comprehension is a little lacking.

[ryry2011]

ok

[mg0930mg]

This is helpful, unlike anything where you show people how to put together knex pieces...

[dianesswi]

Cool idea!
I'll keep this in mind for when we tackle the hideous "cork" tiles in our foyer.

[aeray]

I'd love to see some before-and-after photos.

[naomi1431]

I wonder if this would work for vertical tiles--on a wall? Anyone tried it?

[aeray]

What kind of tiles? What kind of substrate? How are you planning on keeping the dry ice up on the wall? It may work, but more details will help too.

[thejunkman]

Has anyone else tried this? Also, will it work for vinyl that's been on
concrete slab floor for 20 years?
Thank you.

[aeray]

Give it a shot and let us know. After 20 years, the glue may be even more brittle and receptive to this.

[EmmettO]

Huh, I've demolition tons of vinyl tile, but never thought to use cold. I didn't realize the glue would be cold sensitive. Still, unless I had a lot of dry ice available, (which may not be unreasonable) this would be too slow for me to do commercially.

I wonder if it would work any differently on concrete floors?

These look like the self stick variety of tile which has pretty weak glue in the first place. I wonder if this would work with commercial grade VCT glue?

[sleeepy2]

It definitely works on concrete floors and with commercial grade mastics. This is one of the methods asbestos abatement workers use to remove vinyl asbestos floor tile without rendering it friable (the other is using infrared heat machines).

They use the pelleted version of the dry ice and a push broom. They let a pile sit, push it forward with the broom and pick up the popped tile, and repeat until done.

[aeray]

Good to know! Thanks for the info. Hopefully EmmettO tries it.

[EmmettO]

Now all I have to do is find dry ice. :) It's not always available by me.

[Johenix]

Some years ago in the 1950's-60's Popular Science published this same tip but without the parchment paper.

Personally, I would put the dry ice in a rectangular metal cake pan and drag it from tile to tile with a string.

[aeray]

I initially used a cake pan, but it dissipated the cold too much, and took a long time to chill the tile.

[aeray]

These are the cheapo self-adhesive ones. I don't know if it will work with trowel-on. Let me know if you try it.
As for it being slow- it seems slow, waiting around for the glue to pop, but when you take into account the time saved NOT having to scrape or scrub glue residue off the floor, it's pretty fast.

[nwcurtis]

Absolutely brilliant!! It makes perfect sense, yet I would never have thought of it. Thank you!

[aeray]

You're welcome.

[Speedmite]

If you really wanted to, you could speed this up crazy fast with liquid nitrogen. Youd be hearing all sorts of cracking and popin sounds. Tiles might stiffen up though =)

[aeray]

That was my original idea, but my local gasses supplier was of the opinion that liquid nitrogen would "flash off" too quickly to have the desired effect.

[kasssa]

Great idea, but now I CAN'T LET MY WIFE read my Instructable emails any more! We have a few floors that would benefit from this technique, so they would immediately be added to my "Honey Do" list. Darn it!!! :-) :-) :-)

Seriously, a great idea - which I will be trying out!

[aeray]

It seems like a great couples bonding activity to me. If your wife won't help, remember that you can read a book, like I did, while removing the tiles. Depending on your square footage, you'll get quite a bit of relatively uninterrupted reading time and you can later claim that you were doing something productive.