Reddit mentions of Roberts Carpet Tools Floor and Wall Scraper 10-194

Hi op, professional here.

We actually have a guide on a sidebar however it is outdated and a new one is in the works.

Will you be having tiled showers or underfloor heating?


To remove the vinyl, usually we just slice it up with a sharp craft knife and peel back in pieces. An excellent tool is this floor scraper - we carry a minimum of 2 in the toolbox. They also fit standard snap off blades making it easier and cheaper than buying their proprietary products. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FK76AM/


Regardless, the normal scope would be to peel back the linoleum, check quality of the ply and ensure it has appropriate joist spacings and deflection (handy calculator here -https://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/deflecto.pl) use a scraper or mechanical grinder and shop vac to sand the floor, mix and apply thinset (never use pre mix adhesive, even if it has thinset in the name it is a marketing tactic only!) to floor or cbu sheets (sheets best), screw off or nail according to specifications from manufacturer, mesh tape and thinset joints and then away you go.

For tile, my preference is porcelain 24x24" or larger.

1/16 spacings.

You may need leveller.


For wet areas, my personal preference for waterproofing is wedi, it is also code in my country to waterproof floors in bathrooms if it's not a concrete subfloor. A foam insulation product can serve this purpose, and replace cement board underlay.

Laticrete systems, mapei or schluter (ditra) are also excellent alternatives.


If you're heating the floor, I strongly recommend using a foam insulation board under the heating elements as a replacement to cbu, this boosts efficiency by some incredible numbers.


After laying elements, you'll want to level off the floor to protect the elements and provide a smooth surface to tile over. We tend to use mapei eco plan leveller here, but again most brands and ranges have self levelling components.

You may also need to prime prior to leveller, primer seals the surface and prevents the substrate sucking moisture out of adhesive before it has time to cure. This is especially important on cement board, and important to do prior to leveller compounds on concrete or cement board, or gypsum based plasters. It is not usually required over foam boards.

Always ensure it is synthetic resin based or acrylic. Polyvinyl adhesive (PVA) based primer reemulsifies when wet, and latex based primer often just seals the surface rather than penetrating in. Some primers require watering down prior to application.


Pay close attention to mixing of your tile adhesive, water ratios and allowing the mixture to slake (allows polymers in the adhesive and cements to react, and absorb moisture) before mixing again are both very important steps. We see a lot of failures due to adhesives being too thick or not allowed to slake.


For laying tiles, trowel all lines directionally. Backbutter all tiles with a larger surface area of 900cm2 (30x30cm, ie 12x12")

This video explains it better than I can - https://youtu.be/Way5bMh-eYg

Use an appropriate sized trowel! With anti lippage systems (clips), often anything under 1/2" (12mm) can be problematic as the base of the clip can hold the tile off the surface preventing full collapse of the trowel line.

Grouting is easy.
Mix according to instructions, use a damp sponge to clean off.


Cutting tile is easy, we use dry Grinders with diamond mesh blades and dust collection systems, and tile snappers (montolit and sigma) for straight runs.

Video I made for some reason here - http://imgur.com/gallery/5JELx5i

Quick rundown on the above found in an album over here - http://imgur.com/gallery/SJdTq3S


If in doubt, the John Bridge forums is a fantastic resource for tilers, by tilers.

That can be found here - https://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/


Most of the tilers in this subreddit are regulars over on the forums as well.

Don't trust YouTube or many (if any) blog sites, they all get it wrong and shoot down anyone who calls them out. No comebacks just means they don't want you back, or don't know who did it!

The one exception on YouTube is Sal diblisi, his channel can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/user/saldibs

Hope this helps!

Mapei's Kerapoxy cleaner and a blade scraper. Personally, I actually prefer the longer handled ones as I find the extra expense is well outweighed by how much more comfortable they are to use (and I've used them a lot..). You don't want a wider blade because it takes more force to take things off with a wider blade.

That'll remove the majority of it, use some of those abrasive pads with the kerapoxy cleaner to get rid of the rest. It'll still take a lot of elbow grease. And I do mean a lot. The longer you leave it the worse it'll get too.

Would recommend ventilating the area and/or using a respirator with vapour filters, and some decent rubber gloves. Kerapoxy cleaner isn't the nicest of stuff. But it's nicer than muriatic acid for sure, and a lot less can go wrong.

The next step up is muriatic acid, but it's really not something I'd ever recommend for a DIYer. Americans on reddit seem to have a fetish for the stuff, but almost no tile place openly sells it locally to me and you have to be known to them to be able to buy it, because so many people don't take the stuff half as seriously as they should. Tl;dr it's super aggressive stuff and I'd rather you try something that won't do as much damage if you fuck up working with it.