Slate flooring removal – WHAT A NIGHTMARE!

Hi All,

Well today someone was scheduled to be at my house this morning and start removing the 40sqm of slate at my house.. Guess what? He didn’t show up!

Off to Bunnings I went to buy an Ozito 1500W SDS Rotary Hammer Drill. I removed 9sqm in our dining area in about 4 hours, but I didn’t realise how much dust it made! It even seemed to get through closed doors! It just seemed to linger and eventually settle somewhere noticeable. If I disliked my slate floor, after removing a small portion.. I DESPISE IT NOW!

I am going to try get this guy in tomorrow, but if not, ill keep chipping away myself. If I do, I must just be more prepared (dust wise).

Is there anything I can do to minimise the dust while taking up the slate?

With regards to removing the slate.. some tiles popped off nicely, other crumbled.. very frustrating when they did!

Also, after removing the slate, it was still quite rough and uneven (see pics).. will the grinding down give a much better outcome?

At this stage.. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Robbie

 

No idea myself but surely there's good info on youtube?

 

slate is a nighmare to remove - I have it all over my house - hate it!
I've seen people lay other flooring right on top of it. I'm not a licensed trades person so no great tips here sorry, just making a comment and yes I feel for you

 

That's what I'd do...

Did you smash it with a sledgy first?
Yours may not have wire but the concept should work, either way its a bugga of a job



Big job to bring that surface back smooth, what's replacing it?

 

Hire a kango or bosch breaker - use a spade bit

 

Not sure if you can hire one of these from somewhere but it looks like it would work better than a jackhammer

 

Ill see how i go this weekend with my hammer drill, but ill try give the tiles a sledgy as well as attaching a vacum to my drill..

Are you able to have some sort of "thing" that can run and suck up the dust that lingers in the air?

 

Crack a beer and get the guy around to finish it!

Water will keep the dust down, get the hose on a very fine spray, you dont want to flood the place.

 

Next weekend Ill look at hiring a "bigger tool" on a trolley

 

I have had a good few beers to calm me (and the wife) down!

WOW.. what an experience!

Any advice on what grinder i should use to get the surface as "smooth as a baby 's bottom"?

 

The dust might kill your vacuum, the dust of finer than regular house dust. Goes through the filters and game over

 

Tape up all doors and entries with plastic to.

The bigger tool will eat it up

 

Hire a jackhammer from bunnings or just buy one they are about $300.

 

I rented the trolley mount jackhammer from kennards when I took 90sqm of tiles with 30mm screed up. Took a day and a bit, then another day to get the leftover screed off with a grinder.

Filled a 4 cube skip, near killed me but it came up good

 

Yep! Especially if your going to tile

 

I would hire one of these like I did from Kennards.

Floor stripper. Cost 150 for 24 hours

I used it to remove Lino. Buts it made for tiles aswell. Hold on your in for a shaaaakkkkyy ride

 

We had similar flooring at our place. I did the removal myself with a jackhammer and a spade bit, but not all the tiles came off easily and we butchered the slab a little. The tiling glue/cement mix also didn't come up easily. We had the flooring prep guy come in and grind it down using a 9inch grinder with a diamond wheel as it was the only way to get it done in a reasonable time. It was 9 hours work for him and he was working his ass off. The neighbours in the building across from ours were not happy with us by the time our kitchen was finished...

Importantly, what flooring is going down where you've pulled the slate up? Our guy recommended a self-levelling mix but ended up needing to do without it as we were pushed for time. He said he'd give it another coat to really smooth it off had we given them another 48 hours, but the kitchen came up beautifully with timber-look vinyl.

It was a hard job and one I decided I'd pay someone to do next time.

 

Re: the dust - plastic dropsheets and tape all the other rooms off. The dust was EVERYWHERE and gets in everything. The part that took me the longest was letting the dust settle as I didn't have a proper respirator mask and those crappy dust masks don't work so well when they're saturated with sweat.

 

P2 mask minimum