Lose bathroom tiles

Susan M
by Susan M
I getting ready to paint the tiles in my bathroom. However first I must repair several lose tiles. What is the best way to do this? Just remove as much or the grout around the lose tiles and redo it, or attempt to remove the tiles re-grout and put tiles back down. Thanks in advance
  3 answers
  • Okay I am understanding that you are painting your tiles and that you have some loose ones and you need to regrout? Are there a lot of loose tiles? If you have loose tiles, then you might as well take down the tiles altogether {because once you loosen one you will find the others will probably come off too} and fix the wall, put up beadboard if you cannot fix the wall yourself, and paint it or buy tiles that you like-do not forget have a good base of cement board for this project. Painting tiles is not really a permanent or long lasting fix. Tiles really are not meant to be painted and re-grouting does not make tiles stick. Grout is just basically to keep stuff out of the cracks between the tiles and needs to be sealed after you grout. Sometimes people put up tile and do not put up cement board (or durock) which is a must to put in tile either on the floor or on the wall. I hope this helps you decide about what to do. Sometimes it is just easier to start over with a fresh slate than to give yourself a headache by trying to fix something that could end up in a bigger headache. I have had many of those disasters myself and can tell you that after 25 years of being a DIY gal that I rip things out if someone else did it and it is not up to my standards and not done correctly. I always way out the cost of special primers and paints and your time is worth something too verses the cost and time of just starting over. Good luck.
  • The loose tiles is the result of moisture that has got behind the tiles. Once that happens you need to remove the tiles and the offended wall material which most likely when its at a point that the tile is loose contains mold. You can in many cases use paint stripper and soak the tiles to remove the adhesive from the back. Its time consuming, but most not all adhesive will come off in that fashion. The other option is to use a entirely tile around the bottom two or three rows to make it look like it belonged that way.
  • Brendalee Perryman Brendalee Perryman on Jan 26, 2014
    they will come off easy... dry area good, scrape back of tile and floor..get plastic notched trowel and tile adhesive ..at any place like home depot ,ace or wal mart..trowel on enough to make sure even with rest of tile.. wipe excess..let set . clean tile .. then grout...or paint first?