We have a sunroom / entry that was tiled with 18 x 18 tiles, after doing a kitchen and living room remodel, and having to build up the subfloor to install hardwood in the living room the entry sunroom is about an inch and a quarter lower. We would like to put electric floor heat and re tile that room. the room is 15' x 8'. the question is can we re tile over the existing tile w/o pulling the old tile and backer board up. the tile was put down well and would be difficult to pull up. Thanks Gina.

there is no time frames ot limits on failures. chances are it will last 50 years. chances are also that tomorrow is can crack out and start the path to failure. it is a gamble. some win the roll of the dice and some lose. some customers are willing to take that gamble to save a few bucks onm removal. I can tell you of the huge numbers of replacements we do when customers come into our stores with complaints of previous installers/stores who have clad over an existing flooring product, had problems, then came to us to fix them. Actually I remember quite a few who came to us for a quote, then went with someone else when we told them something needed to be ripped out or extensively prepared to be done right, then had someone else do it "their way" to save a few bucks, only to come back to us and pay us to rip BOTH LAYERS out, buy new material from us, and pay us to install it again. That original few bucks they saved is now gone with much more wasted in labor and materials, so it ended up costing them exponentially more in the long haul. I am not saying this is the case with yours, but it is nevertheless a gamble. Standards exist because they give time and trade proven results. Doing it right the first time, there is little chance of failure.

My dh is adament about not taking up the ceramic floor. However, it's 8x8 white marble-looking tile and not only is it a dated look, I am sick to death of keeping it (especially the grout) clean. I was going to keep it and use grout colorant on the grout after we finish the kitchen facelift. But now I'm thinking granite or some other stone counter and if I really do that, the floor will really look terrible. Soooo, there is Allure that looks like stone or ceramic tile, and some that looks like wood. The guy at Home Depot said you don't have to put a leveler on the grout lines, and I read on the website that that is true if they are less than 1/8" deep, which mine are. But I still wonder if, over time, they won't sink into those lines. I could skim more grout on top of the grout lines so it is level with the top surface of the tile, and then at least the tile isn't ruined if at some point we take off the Allure. But I'd like to hear from someone who has done it. Anyone?

I did get the first row of tile up as well as the mud with just a garden spade - however, there's a "ridge" in the concrete at this point. Is there a small hand-held concrete sander out there? The space isn't big enough for one of those honkin' concrete sanders. I'm also concerned about removing the tile with any sort of power chisel equipment - I'm afraid of busting through the entire concrete slab and ending up in my neighbor below's living room (I'm in a condo!)