Removing paint from kitchen floor tiles.

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cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
When we moved in a few years ago we painted the kitchen floor tiles with anti slip clear pain but it held the dirt and looked dirty all the time so we decided to paint over it with ronseal floor paint .
Trouble is it looks terrible as foot traffic has worn areas out quickly.
I have tried bog standard paint remover stuff but its taking ages , maybe 3-4 hours work for a bit maybe just over a metre square.
Tried a heat gun but that was even slower though not as messy , maybe half a tile took 20 mins.
The kitchen is 20x 10 ish foot so i will be here till x mas at this rate !

Any suggestions on how to get it off ?, kids are old enough now to know not to run when its wet and we have a runner by the door as well.Ideally i would like to get it back to the original tiles as they are in pretty good condition.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
Gasket remover. It's like paint stripper on steroids.
 

I like Skol

A Minging Manc...
Maybe rags soaked in cellulose thinners or something similar. Leave the wet rag on for 5 minutes and it is likely the paint will just wrinkle up and lift off.

I suppose it all depends on the composition of the paint used but defo worth a try. Just be warned, the fumes are going to be quite powerful so maximum ventilation required and try to avoid too much inhalation. Probably a good idea to read the Coshh data sheet as you are likely to be splashing a lot of it around for prolonged periods - https://www.cfsnet.co.uk/acatalog/Cellulose_Thinners_MSDS.pdf

On the other hand, I use it for DIY purposes in small amounts and have never even noticed an effect.

DO NOT SMOKE or turn on/off electrical appliances!
 

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
By paint remover, did you mean white spirit? I'd get white spirit off the internet, cheaper than B&Q and if it doesn't work you can still keep it for cleaning brushes. let it soak for as long as you can, then perhaps use a steam cleaner mop, but I suspect heat won't do much good, you might just have to scrub with a ScotchBright.

Then go for Drago's gasket remover. Plenty of PPE required and all the windows open. There is also a really nasty chemical paint stripper that they use on cars and bikes, but again this is not cheap and does need to be respected, but if that doesn't work I don't think much will apart from a large commercial sander. At any rate, If all of that stuff won't budge it then you're better off leaving it as an undercoat, then using a primer once it's all clean and chemical free, then paint?
 
OP
OP
cyberknight

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
But was it getting it off? With chemicals you're always going to get a gungy mess when it breaks down the varnish. Plenty of scrubbing and rags will soon mop it up?
It was the time it was taking though 3-4 hours for a metre square , i was literally having to scrub it off with a wire brush which got so caked i binned it.
 

I like Skol

A Minging Manc...
By paint remover, did you mean white spirit? I'd get white spirit off the internet, cheaper than B&Q
White spirit won't touch it, it's for kids and I use it to clean tar spots off the car or dirty fingerprints of matt-white carbon bike frames (ask @nickyboy).

Cellulose thinner or even acetone (I have no experience of using this but we have it at work and it even wrinkles the latex gloves :eek:) is much more aggressive and likely to yield the sought results.
 
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