Ceramic Tile Over Black Mastic

Somewhere along the lines the beautiful vintage mosaic floors were covered with black mastic then tiled over in vinyl.

Ceramic tile over black mastic.

Generally chemical removal is not a good idea because the solvents used to remove the adhesive can drive bond breakers deeper into the concrete. But after the tiles came up we discovered that they had been secured with black mastic. The tiles were not asbestos we had them tested. Under the old tiles is pretty smooth black mastic.

I ve read i can just put a modified thinset that will adhere to the cutback. Can t possibly remove it by scraping and sanding or grinding will only gum up the apparatus. When you remove that floor covering to make way for new flooring you may encounter the mastic and wonder whether it is safe to remove. Tiling over black cutback i tore up old 9x9 tiles and disposed of them properly and now i m shopping for tile to replace it.

If the adhesive is softened by water then it should be removed by shot blasting. Possibly renting a floor grinder with a carbide tip but haven t tried it yet. There are also black colored latex based vinyl adhesives that will not hold up under ceramic tile if they get wet. When the building was converted to residential the developer removed the.

I am tiling mosaic and small pieces over what once was a concrete basement floor which on occasion in my city with all the rain can get flooded what was there when i bought the house 2 years ago was an asbestos linoleum 1 square very thin tile over a thin black mastic. Common in homes built in the 20th century black mastic was used as an adhesive for ceramic tile linoleum and other flooring materials.