Cracked tile, a soft spot by the sink, and two more floors hiding under the one you can see.
Chicago floor removal is a job where the surprise is never on the surface. We take up tile, thinset, mortar beds, carpet staples, glue and whatever somebody poured over the original oak in 1974, in houses, three-flats and storefronts from Pilsen to Rogers Park. One thing I refuse to do is bid floor tile removal off a phone photo.
A skim of thinset and a two inch mud bed are two different weeks of work, and depth like that, plus square footage, stair access and how many buckets get hauled out to the truck, drives the cost to demo tile floor more than anything else.
Keep going for how the work is done, the dust, and what people ask before they book. Ring us and we will come put a chisel in a corner.
Asbestos Tile Removal
Those 9x9 tiles in the back bedroom, the ones bedded in black mastic, are why asbestos tile removal gets its own scope and never gets folded into a regular gut. A sample goes to a lab first. Nothing comes up until the result does, because a guy with a dry scraper and a rented chipper turns a floor you could have safely left alone into fibers sitting in your furnace ducts for the next decade.
Comes back positive, the room gets sealed in poly, the material comes up wet, and it leaves in labeled bags with disposal paperwork behind it, not in the alley dumpster at dusk.
Square footage, how many layers of vinyl and felt are stacked on top, and whether that mastic grabbed a wood subfloor or a slab all push the number around.
Plenty of the flooring calls into Chicago Demolition from old two-flats near Ravenswood start with a sample jar.
Dustless Tile Removal
Dustless tile removal is floor removal with a vacuum bolted onto the front of it. We run HEPA-shrouded chipping hammers and ride-on scrapers tied into a negative air machine, seal the work area with poly and zip doors, and tape every supply and return register shut before the first tile pops loose.
Silica dust off a thinset grind is fine enough to ride your ductwork into a closet three rooms away, and once it settles on top of your kitchen cabinets you'll be finding it for months.
Square footage moves a tile removal job, but what's under the tile moves it harder. Thinset over a concrete slab comes up fast. A full mortar bed with wire mesh in it is real floor demolition, and it takes longer. Lakefront condo boards that require containment and elevator protection add handling time on top.
Wood Floor Removal
Wood floor removal splits into two jobs, and which one you've got decides the whole day. Nail-down oak strip over a plywood subfloor comes up in courses: we score it with a saw, pry it back in sections, then pull the cleats and staples, and there can be a few thousand of those in one room.
Glued-down engineered plank on a slab is slower, because the glue stays behind after the wood goes and has to be scraped and ground flat, much like epoxy floor removal. Square footage, glue versus nails, stairs to carry the debris down, and however many layers somebody laid over the original all pull the price around.
Done rough, you get a gouged subfloor that telegraphs through the new boards, or enough prying vibration to crack the plaster ceiling in the unit below. We tent and run negative air, same as on dustless tile removal.
Vinyl Flooring Removal
Vinyl flooring removal is mostly a fight with the glue, not the vinyl. The sheet goods come up in strips fast enough, then the felt backing tears and stays stuck to the plywood, and that residue is the real day's work. We score, pull, then scrape the subfloor flat, ride-on scraper where there's open square footage, hand tools around toe kicks, closets and stair nosings.
Leave ridges of dried mastic behind and your new luxury vinyl plank telegraphs every one of them by summer, or the click-lock stops sitting flat and starts popping at the seams.
What moves this one is layers. Vinyl over vinyl over old adhesive on a Lakeview walk-up is three jobs. Basement slabs add grinding, and if there's a coating under it, epoxy floor removal happens before any floor removal is truly finished.
Laminate Floor Removal
Laminate floor removal is the easiest call we get all week, at least on paper. A floating click-lock floor lifts in planks, the foam underlayment rolls up behind it, and the quarter round and transition strips come off with the same pry bar. Most of these we get done in half a day.
Where it stops being easy is laminate that took on water. Once the fiberboard core swells, planks crumble instead of lifting and you get sawdust, not boards. Glued-down plank is slower again, because the adhesive has to come off the plywood or the slab before new flooring goes down. Leave it, and every ridge and forgotten staple telegraphs through your new floor inside a year. That's not a floor problem, that's a prep problem.
Cost follows square footage, glued versus floating, stairs, and how far the debris has to travel to the truck.
Bathroom Tile Removal
Bathroom tile removal in an older Chicago two-flat usually means a mud bed, not thinset. That's an inch and a half of mortar over wire lath sitting right on the subfloor, and it comes out in heavy chunks that get carried down the stairs in buckets. Small room, no machine fits, so it's chipping hammer and pry bar work.
We kill the water and pull the toilet and vanity first. Chipping around a closet flange is how somebody cracks a cast iron drain, and that turns a floor removal job into a plumbing job nobody quoted. I go easy over joist tops and around the supply lines behind the tub.
Things that change the number: mud bed or thinset, how many flights the debris rides down, and whether there's soft wood hiding under it. Tile floor demolition in a five by seven room is patient work.
Kitchen Tile Removal
Kitchen tile removal is fussier than clearing an open room, because a kitchen is full of things that have to survive the day. Cabinets you're keeping, a gas range with a line that gets shut off first, a dishwasher sitting right on the tile edge. We pull the toe kicks, cut the field back clean at the cabinet bases, and tape off supply and return vents so grout dust isn't drifting into the back bedroom all week.
Most kitchen floor removal gets decided by what's under the tile rather than the tile itself. A mortar bed with wire lath over plank subfloor lifts in heavy slabs. Thinset on plywood has to be scraped back flat, and if somebody chips too hard they gouge the plywood, which turns your install into a leveling job. Square footage, the setting bed, whether cabinets stay and how far debris has to travel to the truck all pull on tile floor demolition.
What the job involves
Floor removal starts before a single board comes up. We mask the doorways, run plastic, and lay protection on the whole path from the room to the truck, because the mess on this work isn't chunks, it's fine grit that gets everywhere. Then we cut the field into strips a person can carry, pry it up, and scrape the room down to bare subfloor. That scraping is the slow part, and it's the part a cheap bid leaves off.
Ridges of old mastic or thinset left behind will telegraph through whatever goes down next.
Layers matter. Plenty of two-flats here have carpet over vinyl over the original maple, and each one is its own pass, which is why a nailed-down wood floor removal runs different from a glue-down.
Square footage, layer count, and whether the dumpster sits in the alley or two flights down out front are what swing the cost.
What it costs
What it costs depends on four things: how many square feet of floor removal you're looking at, what's bonded to the subfloor under it, how many layers deep the previous owners went, and how far every bucket of debris has to travel to reach the dumpster. Carpet and pad off plywood is quick. Vinyl flooring removal where the mastic has been curing on a slab since disco is scraping, and scraping eats hours. Access counts too.
A ground-floor unit with the alley right behind it is a different job from a third-floor walk-up where everything comes down on somebody's shoulder. Call us with your room sizes and whatever you know about what's underneath, and we'll put a real number on it. Pricing a floor sight unseen is how people end up surprised.
When floor removal is the wrong fix
Sometimes floor removal is the wrong first move, just the wrong order of operations. If the brick stack is coming off the roof, the rubble and staging that go with chimney removal will beat up anything we leave behind, so the stack goes first and the floor comes up after. Same with a structure that is not staying.
Nobody needs a slab scraped clean ahead of a garage demolition or a mobile home demolition, and the plywood deck in a backyard shed leaves with the shed removal rather than as its own visit.
Then there is the floor that was never the problem. A dead chest freezer rusted onto the basement tile is appliance removal, not a tear-out. And if sheet vinyl is sound and still glued tight, asbestos flooring removal can cost you more than sealing it under new underlayment. Rip it up anyway and you have made fibers, and a much bigger job.
Why choose us for this
You've got a floor that has to come out, and what you actually want is to hire the floor removal once, stay off site, and never think about that room again. Fair enough.
The quote that comes in lowest usually got there by leaving things off the sheet: the thinset grinding, the dumpster hauls, the lab test that tells you whether asbestos flooring removal is what you're really dealing with. In a 1920s two-flat with vinyl over lino over oak, finding that out on day two costs you your whole schedule.
What I won't do is pull the surface and leave you a slab that still needs a day of grinding before anything new goes down. Flat is part of the job here, not a change order.
Over 34 years of this. The estimate costs nothing and booking isn't part of it.
Frequently asked questions
Will you damage the subfloor underneath?
Careful floor removal leaves a subfloor the next installer can work on. Thinset over plywood is where the harm usually happens, so we grind the residue down instead of chiseling at it and keep the scraper blades flat. If a sheet turns up gouged, soft, or spongy from an old leak, you hear about it while it's still visible rather than after the new floor covers it.
What's the difference between laminate floor removal and pulling up glued-down vinyl?
Laminate clicks together, so it lifts in planks along with the foam underlayment and stacks fast. Glued vinyl fights back: the adhesive stays stuck to the deck and has to be scraped, then ground. Same size room, very different hours.
Is the whole house off limits while you work?
Usually just the room. We plastic off the doorway, run negative air, and lay protection on the carry path. A long haul down stairs adds hours; a ground floor room with the truck at the door goes quick.
Contact Chicago Demolition now
Ready to get this floor removal on the schedule? Call us and tell me what is actually under there: ceramic set in a mud bed, glue-down vinyl over plywood, or three layers nobody has looked at since the last kitchen redo. Two minutes on the phone tells me whether your job is a hand scraper and a couple of guys or a ride-on machine and a container in the alley.
Useful things to have handy when you call: rough square footage, which floor of the building it sits on, and how the debris gets out. A tight stairwell in a Bridgeport two flat adds more hours than a few hundred extra square feet ever will. If you are weighing the cost to demo tile floor and subfloor together, say so.
Somebody is here weekdays, nine to five. Messages get returned.