On 15 Apr 2004 05:43:04 -0700, wrote:

"TX_Dude" wrote in message ...
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The wife wants to tile the kitchen with 1 ft square ceramic tiles.
So she goes out and buys the stuff at Lowe's. The salesperson
tells her that it's OK to ceramic tile over linoleum (or it may
be vinyl....whatever, it's a 1 piece sheet). I say it's not OK, that
the old flooring should be removed. The house has a concrete
slab and it seems to me that direct adhesion to the slab would
be best. The wife is giving me grief.... says I'm nit-pickin and
creating more work for myself.

I've done a Google Groups search on "ceramic installed over
linoleum" and the opinions seem to be split.

Opinions?


Having done a similar project in which I decided to remove the
existing lineoleum before tiling, if I had to do it again I would tile
over the linoleum. Scraping up the lineoleum in a small kitchen/dining
area was a nightmare. Stuff came up in small, torn pieces and
constantly clogged the scrapper blade. I spent more than a full day on
it and often had to get on my hands and knees in the corners and near
base cabinets. I found out recently that one of my kids who helped on
this project (this was years ago) remembers it like POWs remember
their days in tiger cages. Of course, if the lineoleum comes up
easily, that's another matter. Since that project I did a couple of
others in which I laid tile over vinyl squares and haven't had a
problem. Didn't rough up the vinyl or anything. This was several years
ago and the tile is still rock solid. BTW, all of this is on a
concrete slab.

Well if this were a perfectly flat linoleum, I may consider tiling over it.
But it's a type of linoleum that's like simulated bricks, and it has dips or
little valleys that simulate mortar. If it weren't for these
low spots, I don't think tiling over it would hurt.