Should You Repair or Replace Your Tiled Floor?

Floor tiles may look beautiful in a modern home, but over the years they will inevitably become damaged. Whether or not you can get away with repairing them will depend upon what type of damage they’ve suffered.

Floor tiles that have been damaged by chemicals or simply by hard water buildup can usually be cleaned off with a stiff scrubbing brush and some mild detergent. Floor tiles that have suffered mechanical damage, such as shattering due to objects being dropped on them or by heavy traffic over fragile tiles, generally need to be replaced. Damage from environmental or chemical sources is usually fairly easy to deal with.

Your floor tiles will sometimes become discolored due to dirt and grime, chemicals or heavy wear and tear. To get rid of this discoloration, you usually just need some elbow grease and enough dedication to be thorough. Be sure you check to see what types of cleaners are safe for your floor tiles. Some tiles are easily damaged or discolored by certain common chemicals, so test in an inconspicuous area before cleaning the whole floor.

If you’re looking at floor tiles that are broken or cracked, you may want to go ahead and replace them. To take them up, you use a pry bar and a hammer and simply lift them from underneath. You’ll have to remove all of the adhesive that held the removed floor tiles in place and clean up the subfloor. New tiles can be purchased from a specialist tiling store or simply from a nearby hardwear store.

After reapplying tile adhesive, you simply replace the broken tiles with new ones. If you need to cut tile, make sure you use the correct type of saw. You can usually rent a water-cooled saw designed to cut floor tiles from most hardware stores.