I am looking at purchasing a second hand home. How difficult would it be to break out the cheap floor tiles often used in Thailand to replace them with higher quality tiles?

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We're in the middle of renovating a building using builders at the moment. Part of that includes replacing a 8 x 12 metre tile on concrete area. It took 2 guys a day with hammer hitting a putty knife to lift the old tiles. Most of the tile cement came off as they went. Still haven't reached the stage to lay new tiles yet.

It's a job i wouldn't like to do myself. Labor is cheap and its something the builders seem familiar with.

I have no intention of doing it myself. I was a bit concerned about getting the cement off the floor. In the west they use special adhesives.

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Labour is 300 baht/day. Less for migrant. Why do it yourself?

Keep your eyes on the work as over here they tend to fix the tiles using about 25mm of cement. You may end up with the floor level a bit higher than any other connecting room floors !

Labour is 300 baht/day. Less for migrant. Why do it yourself?

Lets see exactly what your 300 baht a day gets you.

Assuming you werent daft enough to part with money upfront, get a broom handle and start tapping where your immigrant labour has laid your tiles.

Do you hear a dull thud or a hollow sound?

Watch the look on Somchais face as you get some masking tape and lay it on the tiles that arent quite laid correctly and tell him they need replacing/re-doing.

Thats why some would rather pay a bit more and have the job done correctly first time.

Up to you as they say.

Labour is 300 baht/day. Less for migrant. Why do it yourself?

Lets see exactly what your 300 baht a day gets you.

Assuming you werent daft enough to part with money upfront, get a broom handle and start tapping where your immigrant labour has laid your tiles.

Do you hear a dull thud or a hollow sound?

Watch the look on Somchais face as you get some masking tape and lay it on the tiles that arent quite laid correctly and tell him they need replacing/re-doing.

Thats why some would rather pay a bit more and have the job done correctly first time.

Up to you as they say.

I thought the OP was about the difficulty of removing old tiles. I recently had tiles removed and new ones fitted by a village handyman/builder and am very pleased with the job. Removing the old tiles is certainly not a job I would like to do

Bloomin heck, just get an sds drill with chisel bit on, youll have em off in no time.

CLEANLINESS is important when gluing anything together inc tiles.

I see many condos with the tiles lifting, heres what they do, walk into a dusty room, chuck down some cement and lay the tiles,

BIG mistake floor wasnt clean from the off

What I do is , vacuum the floor with a small brush emptying the vac often to remove all dust.

After apply some pva to the floor to give it something nice to grip to, then I use a proper tile glue such as la farge and not more than 10mm thick max.

If everything is clean and dust free you wont get problems..............this is where the Thai way goes very wrong from what I see.