How To Remove Peel And Stick Tile Glue

Everyone loves peel and stick tile… until you have to remove information technology. Learn the piece of cake secret to removing pare and stick tile in this quick tutorial!

Peel and Stick tile seems to be every DIY decorator'southward best friend: it'southward inexpensive, easy to install, and looks good… most of the time. In my new home's kitchen, withal, I was not a fan. Hither's what I started with:

Find out the easiest way to remove your peel and stick floor tile. # AButterflyHouse #Flooring #PeelAndStickTile #Demolition

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The tile darkened what was already a pretty night kitchen, and as a part of my kitchen remodel, I wanted to replace the floor with something lighter.

The pare and stick tile had to go. But, nosotros all hear nigh how piece of cake pare and stick tile is to install, but is it like shooting fish in a barrel to remove??

Spoiler alert: No.

I started with but a prybar and a hammer, and worked to pry the tiles off the floor. Did it work? Sure, if I wanted to spend the residuum of my life breaking trivial pieces of tile off the floor…

I quickly realized I needed a faster method; ideally one that pulled the tile off in a full piece.

So I did a fleck of research, and learned that the adhesive holding the tiles softens when oestrus is applied. Since a hairdryer was one of the few things I had already unpacked, that became my preferred method of oestrus application.

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How to Remove Peel and Stick Tile

Materials

Pilus Dryer – Yous should know that regardless of information technology's agglutinative melting abilities, this is the best hair dryer in the globe. The castor zipper dries my pilus super fast, while simultaneously straightening my (admittedly already straight) hair. I've had it for at least five years now, and am still in honey.
Hammer
Small Prybar
Baking Soda

Footstep 0: Prep

I feel misleading calling the prep piece of work a step for this project; it took all of three minutes.

I removed whatsoever materials that were on top of the tile, aka, the Air-conditioning grate and the transition strips that the previous owner had put at all of the doorways.

About halfway through the project, I also removed all of the cabinets, but I merely did that because I was getting new cabinets, and planned to install my new floor under those cabinets. The peel and stick tile didn't actually continue nether the cabinets.

Step 1: Warm Upward the Tile

The warmer you tin go your tile, the easier information technology will exist to remove. I used a hairdryer to exercise this, since it was easily attainable, although I've also read that using your iron is also a possibility.

I imagine if you put a towel down over the tile (and then you don't melt the surface of the tile and cease up with a giant mess) and then iron, it would heat the tile hotter and faster than my hairdryer method. If you try/tried this, please let me know in the comments beneath; I really want to know how it goes!!

Edit: Some people tried this (see comments!) and it went well! It was as well mentioned that a rut gun could work really well as well.

Then every bit referenced above, I heated my tile with a hairdryer. I put the hairdryer on high, and held information technology about an inch to a higher place the tile.

Property it closer better warmed the tile (yay!), but overheated my hairdryer, since a bunch of the hot air was forced dorsum into the motor (boo.) This:

wasn't good for my hair dryer, and
meant I had to continually stop and wait for it to cool down.

Plainly, I opted to concur the hair dryer at least an inch away from the tile to avoid this.

I held the hairdryer about an inch in a higher place the tile as to non overheat the hairdryer. Typically moving the hairdryer around the tile for most thirty seconds was enough to estrus information technology upward sufficiently.

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Pace two: Pry Upward a Side

Starting at a corner, I worked the pry bar under the tile, using my hammer to push information technology further nether when necessary.

I moved downwards i side with the pry bar, with the goal of lifting that one side far enough off the floor to be able to take hold of on to information technology with my hands.

I have this prybar set, and the largest bar was perfect for this projection. Additionally, the set has been everything I've ever needed for all of my demolition projects, and so if y'all're in demand of a set, check it out!

Step 3: Pull the Tile

You take one goal when pulling upward a piece of tile: get the tile up in one piece. If (when) y'all fail at this goal, you'll accept a little slice of tile that is still well-stuck to the floor.

For whatsoever reason, it seems significantly more difficult to get upwards the small pieces of tile than one large slice. It is annoying and time-consuming, then you're much amend off trying to keep the tile in-tact.

Considering of that, I constitute at that place was a right and a wrong manner to pull the tile.

Incorrect Style: Pulling up. On all the tiles where I pulled upwardly (aka, at a 70 degree bending with the floor) the steep angle that I was pulling snapped my tile instead of lifting the remainder off the floor.

I was left with part of the tile completely off the flooring, and some of the tile yet stuck to the flooring, and these 2 pieces continued by the thin decorative layer (that rips off super easily.)

Right Fashion: Pulling toward myself. By pulling toward myself (aka, at near a 30 degree bending with the floor), in that location was enough force per unit area for the tile to slowly heighten upward, but not plenty upwards pressure to snap the tile.

This was the bending I pulled at that was successful. I besides used both hands, but couldn't manage that while taking a movie!

Step 4: Lay Blistering Soda

Once you remove the tile, there is a sparse layer of adhesive that remains on the floor, and as expected, information technology is super sticky.

I didn't find that there was plenty adhesive to make the floor bumpy and cause issues with the new flooring I was going to install, and then I didn't endeavor to remove the adhesive.

Instead, I only dropped handfuls of baking soda (which I buy from Costco in a giant size) on the floor, which stuck to the adhesive and hid the stickiness.

After finishing the whole flooring, I vacuumed up the baking soda before installing the new floor.

Pace 5: Repeat (many times…)

The flooring will eventually be gone, I hope.

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Final Thoughts

Removing the peel and stick tile was a boring process for sure, only my new kitchen was 100% worth information technology – go accept a look at the final reveal!

Did you effort to remove peel and stick tile? How did it go? Did you utilize the hairdryer method, the fe method, or something else? Please tell me – I'g sure there will exist more peel and stick tile for me to remove in the future… like in the laundry room.

Finally, if you constitute this useful, I would absolutely beloved if you saved it to Pinterest. That way, other people can discover this post too!