We have a three-quarters bathroom in our basement that has never been functional.  The walls were a dingy white and there was a 1980’s fish border.  The floor was a green and white vinyl tile.  The shower was OK, the sink was fine (even though it was not pretty), but the toilet did not work – the water would drain out of the bowl allowing sewer gas into the room.  As the opening salvo in our Operation: Basement 2009 we took everything, except the shower, out.

After removing the offending toilet the next order of business was getting rid of the old, worn glued-down tile.  We started by using a 5-in-1 tool and hammer, but it wasn’t very sturdy and didn’t get up very much tile.  We started using the Hard Cap Floor Chisel after just one frustrating evening.  The polymer cap reduced the vibrations we felt dramatically.  Since we were scraping the tile directly off concrete, there wasn’t any give and that cushioning was very important.  It was very easy to get under the tile with the chisel point.  The three-inch width got up much more tile in one go than we expected.  Of course, some times the glue prevented a larger path of destruction, but quite often we were able to get a good four to five inch wide and six inch long area up before the tile broke off.

This was quite possibly the hardest part of the entire process, but it was made so much easier by using the Hard Cap Floor Chisel.  You’ve got to work smarter, not harder!