Tile over carpet adhesive?

[Gus Riley]

I'm going to lay some ceramic tile in my kitchen and utility room floors. The previous owners had put down some ugly brown indoor/out-door carpet. Upon lifting a corner of the carpet I find it comes up easy enough, but the adhesive stays down. I also see that they laid the carpet down over the linoleum floor. So when I pull the carpet up there remains the adhesive then the old linoleum.

The adhesive covered floor appears to be evenly and securely attached to the base flooring. Can I safely tile over both of these?

I looked for this subject or something close to it before I asked it myself...sorry if I missed it somewhere and am asking a question that has already been gone over

[ultimatehandyman]

Hi Gus and welcome to UHM



Personally I would remove the linoleum first.


I found this though, it may be of some use-

Dead link removed

If I was doing it though I would definately remove the linoleum first.

[Gus Riley]

Thanks for the welcome.

Honestly I am an amateur in the world of floor tiling. The linoleum might come right up after I get the carpet out. I think when I do get the carpet out I'll examine the staying properties of the adhesive left on top of the linoleum. I also want to see how easily the linoleum can be removed from the base floor. I'm not even sure what is under the linoleum...plywood or something better? I know it is not cement.

Thanks for the advice and the info thread. It seems to give some options depending on what I find above.

[ultimatehandyman]

You can hire machines now to help remove carpets/linoleum/vinyl tiles etc.


http://www.hss.com/g/58411/Floor-Tile-Stripper.html

I'm not sure how effective they are though, but it is often difficult to remove such floor coverings.

[darrenba]

I just removed a load of lino / floor tiles from the kitchen floor using one of these. Made very light work of it.

Big Mutt