My husband and I have a huge issue right now. Some guy messed up our tile job completely, so we are removing it all and replacing it ourselves (should have done it ourselves in the first place). The tiles all popped up in whole pieces- the “contractor” did not back butter the tiles. Instead, he put all the thinset on the backer board that we just recently put down ourselves with screws (and taped and mortared the seams). Now all of the thinset is stuck to the backer board. We need to use this backer board again. How the heck do we take this stuff off? It’s really thick !! We’re talking about 320 sq ft….
Would it be okay if we sanded some of it down and then poured a self leveler over it? Please say yes….
Thank you!
Removing thinset from durarock backer board
thinset
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Best Answer
For a small area, a grinder with a silicon carbide wheel will clean thinset off, but it is real messy. For your 320 sq ft area, it could be done, but I would be inclined to pull the backerboard up.
Was the backerboard thinset to underlayment plywood or something like that?
If height is not an issue, you might consider thinsetting new backerboard to the existing, after using a grinder to level out the high spots.
Sorry I cannot offer a more definitive solution; you are in a hard spot.