"John Gilmer" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, we pulled the 12" square tile squares off a bathroom floor.
We
have owned the place for almost 20 year but we don't know how much longer
than that the tile was in place.

Anyway, it seems that these is "paper" between the tiles and the
sub-floor.

Was this common practice in the past? I will say that the "paper" made
it
easy to pick up the old tiles. The paper is stuck to the subfloor here
and
there but most of it scrapes up. The paper didn't seem to absorb
moisture
unlike the masonite underlayment that the kitchen the same house used.

If I knew what the stuff was, I would be tempted to put down "paper"
again.




My 1980 vintage kitchen countertop had the Craft wax paper. Base cabinet,
particle board, wax paper, bed of mortar with chicken wire and than the tile
on top of it all. Lasted for years.

Don't know about floors. My floor tiles were bounded directly to the
concrete slab. Had to take a jack hammer to it as the rotary hammer wasn't
strong enough. Would have been lot easier to remove if paper were used on
top of the concrete.