Yes....every floor requires preparation prior to installation. Once the travertine is gone, the "base" or subfloor must be dealt with all over again. What needs to be done will be figured out once the old floor is gone.

Porcelain tile likes a nice, smooth, even, flat substrate. A stone floor that has been jacked out, is rough, uneven, jagged and in poor shape. It will require some love. With what and how much, no one can tell you until the job is done.

Good luck. And pay to have the substrate fixed once the floor is gone. This is the pain we go through when removing one type of permanent floor, only to install another permanent floor right afterwards. It is all part of the gig.

My son and I removed about 1200 sq ft of ceramic tile that was replaced with travertine, and the first round with the small jack hammer took us two very long days. We were so worn out that we hired someone to then take off the high points with a push blade and a grinder before the tile was installed. It took two people about another day for that final finishing.

The tool you use looks like a jack hammer, but it is much smaller. Smaller means lighter, but it also means you cannot stand up and use it. You have to be on your knees and nearly at floor level so that you can get the blade up against the edge of the tile. Sometimes the tile pops off in large pieces, but other times it seems to go inch by inch. The hammer throws tile shards across the room and sometimes as much as six feet high, so you need eye and hearing protection, and full coverage with long sleeves and gloves.

We were able to rent the hammer from Sunbelt Rental, which was adjacent to the local Lowes. If you have similar access to tools you may be able to just hire local manual labor to do the job for you. Just cover everything first, and make sure they are competent enough to not run the jack hammer into your cabinets or appliances. It is mostly pure grunt work, not skilled labor. You can also get the large scraper blade at Lowes or HD. The blade is on a pole and it is used like a push broom to just scrape all the residue, but it takes significant arm muscle.

Bruce

1. Thanks for the input. We built our home which is poured concrete floors and walls and totally understand the "on your knees " jobs. We have travertine in the entire interior of our house about 1500 square feet and over 2400 sq. feet of patios and courtyard outside. Other than a few areas which have pitted and were easily filled with Traverfill it looks great. The kitchen was a poor choice for travertine even with repeated sealing. The kitchen has french doors on opposite walls and gets major walk thru traffic. I cook and bake and serve to our outdoor dining room so there are regular spills and stains. I thought of putting a floating floor on top of the tile and just raise the threshold on both french doors. The threshold is already raised to prevent water from a tropical storm from entering the house. But the doorway to the inside living room would create a tripping hazard. The tool you used sounds like a hammer drill with a special blade. We have to use a hammer drill to even put a tapcon in the wall to hang a picture. I can barely lift it. Living on St. John has it's challenges and I will have to find a porcelain tile with a travertine look, Have it shipped in and then have the tile removed. It sounds like it could be done in a week if I have all the materials ready to go, including the laborers. We will have to put 4 x 8 sheets of plywood against the cabinets to prevent damage from the drill and tile removal. Sounds like I should have the tile jacked while my husband is away. I appreciate the advice. It just confirms what I imagined would be required to have a new floor. I attached a picture before we finished the house
2. as the tile was completed.