It's between insane and ludicrous. I demo'd out about 300 sq ft of tile at our old house, over 1,000 miles away about 3 1/2 years ago and to this day I'll still find the occasional sliver of tile or gray dust on something that's rarely used.

Okay, empty the cabinets it is. I have to empty them anyway for the painter who will be re-painting the cabinets week after next, so it's just a matter of doing it this weekend instead of next.

Can they wet or dampen things down as they work? Did you have the whole layer of materials tested for asbestos? It turns up in all sorts of products. Maybe lead even, not sure. It can be in clay products.

To be honest, that day of tile demo was absolutely the worst day of our reno. It's horrific. Just warning you! ;)

Yep - that bad and worse! And we had 700 sf of tile throughout foyer/hall/open concept house, so no real way to "seal off" the area (although, I didn't think they worried too much about trying to mitigate anything.) If you have any screens on the windows/sliding glass doors that are inside, remove them, too. You think it will never go away, although, it does eventually get better (although, 4 months later, still have "dust" issues).
Hang in there -- it will be worth it!

marys235:

Are you certain the floor needs demolition? It depends on the shape the floor is in and the new floor being laid.

I watched a contractor lose his a$$ on a 5th floor oceanfront tile demo. He jackhammered through the hollow concrete in spots. He could have pulled the baseboards, trimmed the casing and jambs, saved all the labor, tool rental and dump fees, and had a more rigid and soundproof floor had he skipped demolition.

Get a good respirator and wear it when you are removing the tile and grout! Recently, I removed the dried grout from a small tile sample board with a hand grout saw ( in order to try another color of grout), and then when I went inside to mix up the grout, I noticed these horrible warnings on the grout package about not breathing the silica dust in the grout and how it can cause deadly silicosis and lung cancer, etc! Afterwards, I ended up with such a terrible hacking cough that lasted for over a month from breathing even just that little bit of grout dust. I hope I didn't permanently damage my lungs. Hope this helps you!

It wasn't so bad when I did it... I taped off the area and emptied the cabinets, but did not empty the pantry. Baseboards were pulled the day before and then the electric roto hammer with 4 inch chisel bit came out. 11 hours later I was done and the debris were all out of the area. It absolutely sucked, and it was a 2 step process to do tile and then thinset that was still attached to the concrete subfloor. Adding water would have only made it messier.

I'm on a concrete slab, 1 story. We considered putting the new floor over the old, but it would have raised the kitchen floor quite a bit higher than the dining room and would have looked odd, so the demo is necessary. It is 300 square feet, hopefully it will go smoothly, the guy doing the work is supposed to be very good. I'm planning to be at work while he is doing the actual demo, so I'll just be dealing with the mess when I get home.