Removal of tiles and paving

A well-done removal follows a clear order. If a step gets skipped, you see it later in the state of the wall or in a lot of extra cleaning.

1. Preparing the room: the bath, basin, floor and door frames are covered, and doors to other rooms are sealed with plastic sheeting. Mirrors, cabinets, taps and socket covers come off.
2. Isolating services: the water is turned off and the circuit breaker for the room is switched off. The routes of cables and pipes are checked.
3. Removing the tiles: the tiles are chipped off starting from an edge or a corner, working in small areas, either by hand or with a light demolition hammer fitted with a flat chisel.
4. Cleaning the wall: leftover adhesive or mortar is removed, depending on what happens next.
5. Clearing the rubble: the debris goes into strong rubble sacks and is disposed of as construction waste.

Why start at an edge? The first tile is always the hardest to get off. After that, each tile has a free edge, so the chisel can slide in behind it. The wall takes fewer blows that way.

For a small area, such as a strip of splashback behind kitchen units, a club hammer and a wide bolster chisel are often enough. Working by hand is slower, but you stay in control and the wall does not get damaged for no reason.

For a whole bathroom, a light demolition hammer or an SDS drill with a flat or tile chisel is the usual choice. A heavy breaker has no place in a flat. It easily damages plaster, brickwork and services, and in a block of flats the noise travels through the whole building.

If part of the tiling is to stay, the boundary is cut first with an angle grinder and a diamond blade. The tiles then break exactly where they should, not two rows further along.

Two walls of the same size can take an hour or a whole morning. What matters most is what the tiles are fixed with and what is behind them.

• Tiles in a thin bed of adhesive come off fairly easily, but adhesive stays on the wall and has to be ground or chipped off.
• Tiles set in mortar, common in older houses and flats, sit in a thicker layer. They often come away together with the mortar right down to the brickwork, and the wall then needs levelling.
• Tiles on plasterboard need care. The paper face of the board tears easily, and sometimes it is simpler to replace the board than to repair it.
• Several layers, where new tiles were once stuck over old ones, mean more work and more rubble.
• Shower areas often have a waterproofing membrane under the tiles. It gets damaged during removal, and a new one is applied before retiling.
• Access and disposal: an upper floor with no lift, a narrow hallway or a lot of fittings in the room all slow the job down.

Bathroom and kitchen walls carry water pipes, waste pipes and electrics. Cables usually run straight up, down or across from sockets and switches, but in older buildings this is not always the case. A cable and pipe detector helps, and so does care when chiselling near fittings. If a cable gets damaged, a qualified electrician has to repair it, not a DIYer.

Chiselling tiles creates fine dust containing silica, which harms the lungs. Wear an FFP2 mask or better, safety glasses, sturdy gloves and long sleeves, because tile shards are as sharp as glass. If you suspect there are old asbestos cement boards behind the tiles, stop work and have the material tested. Asbestos may only be removed by a licensed contractor.

In a block of flats, check the house rules, which often set the hours for noisy work, and let the building management or owners' association know. Replacing tiles on its own is normally treated as ordinary maintenance. If you plan to combine it with changes to partition walls, shared risers or the layout, check with your local building authority what is required.

If the area is small, the wall is masonry and you have patience, you can manage this yourself. With plasterboard, lots of pipes and cables, or a whole bathroom tiled in mortar, it is usually wiser to call in a tradesperson.

1. Turn off the water and switch off the circuit breaker for the room.
2. Remove fittings and the covers of sockets and switches.
3. Cover the bath, floor and doors with plastic sheeting and open the window.
4. Put on a dust mask, safety glasses and gloves.
5. Use a detector and mark the routes of cables and pipes on the tiles.
6. If part of the tiling is staying, cut the boundary with an angle grinder.
7. Break the first tile in a corner or at an edge and pick out the pieces.
8. Slide the chisel behind the next tiles at a low angle and lever them off one by one.
9. Work only by hand and gently around pipes, cables and fittings.
10. Chip or grind off leftover adhesive and carry the rubble out in sacks as you go.
11. Vacuum the wall and tap it to check for hollow plaster.

• Too heavy a tool smashes the plaster and brickwork, and a simple removal turns into repairing the whole wall.
• Chiselling blind near services ends with a punctured pipe or a cut cable.
• Adhesive left on the wall means the new tiles do not sit flat and bond less well.
• Underestimating the rubble: tiles are heavy, there are usually more sacks than expected, and they must not go in the household bin.
• No allowance for surprises: under old tiles there is often hollow or damp plaster that has to be dealt with.

Small amounts of DIY rubble are often accepted at the local household waste recycling centre, depending on your council's rules. Larger amounts usually call for a skip.

• Tiles are removed across the whole agreed area and edges next to retained tiling are straight
• No adhesive remains on the wall that would get in the way of new tiles
• The plaster does not sound hollow when tapped, and any hollow spots are marked or removed
• Water pipes and cables are undamaged and nothing drips when the water is turned back on
• Fittings, bath and floor are free of scratches and cracks
• Rubble has been taken away and the room is swept and vacuumed
• It is agreed who will prepare the wall for the new tiles