Floor tile removal

[pom liner]

Hi,

My underfloor heating has stopped working: Ive a feeling I cut the cable whilst removing the silicon that the 'tiler' (for want of a better description) did as he used the wrong colour. Having removed it all and redoing it with the correct colour I discovered that the underfloor heating has ceased working. Its the electric type (http://www.ambient-ufh.co.uk/under-tile ... -c-42.html), and repair kits are available.

The question is this. Ive an idea where the fault will be - fortunately it can only be near the wall/floor edge so its a case of lifting the 'cut' tiles around the edge, and/or just two 'complete' tiles off to one side. How do I remove them without doing further damage to the heating cable or surrounding tiles? If there was no heating cable under it, i'd grind out the grout and remove the tiles with a sharp chisel. Obviously, doing it that way would wreck the cable entirely.

Any suggestions and advice gratefully recieved, anything that will stop my Mrs whingeing about cold floor tiles!

[thescruff]

If they are stuck down properly, I guess you could have a problem. In fact I don't think you'll get them up without damaging the mat. Maybe a very sharp chisel and pick away with small slithers.

[Colour Republic]

Was an SLC laid over the mat before tiling?

[pom liner]

Hi, writing this via mobile phone so please forgive the layout. The heating was cable only - not a mat, due to odd shape of the room. I gave a link direct to the product if that helps any. The cable was bonded to a flexible adhesive screed direct to the 'plastic ply' floor, then tiled over. Apparently this was correct from what i read and was told at the time. Worked lovely too, right up to when i sliced it through! Cheers fellas.

[Colour Republic]

Ok 'plastic ply' is a tile backer from Nicobond, I've not used it myself as it doesn't quite sit right right in my head but that's not to say it isn't ok, infact i've heard some quite good reviews, again i can't say for sure but i'm not sure of it's OK for use with UFH but anyway that is beside the point.

Some tilers tile directly on to the cable or matting, now there is nothing wrong with this, you just have to be careful not to nic the cable or matting with your trowel when doing so, for this reason many tilers prefer to lay an SLC over the UFH first. This has two benefits 1) reduced risk of damaging the cable when laying the tiles and 2) if a repair is need (as in your case) you stand a much better case of doing so without damaging the UFH

Maybe a quick call to the tiler is needed to see what method he used