How do I lift a badly installed rubberised coating on patio tiles ?

[speedysteve]

As the title suggests I have issues with a badly layed rubberized coating in my patio area / around the pool, several areas have lifted and cracked due to water ingress over the winter and it looks terrible.. I bought the house a couple of years ago and suspect the coating was put down to hide nasty looking tiles.

As far as I can tell the patio is a concrete pad with tiles on top and then this layer of rubberized "goop" on top of that. Its pretty hard stuff but in the areas that have lifted can be peeled & broken off of the tiles below, its a big area ( around 600 sq/ft ) so how would I best go about trying to lift it ?

Im kinda scared of starting something making it look worse then being unable to lift the entire area... I hope the tiles underneath are good enough to cleanup and live with for a couple of years as recovering the whole area with tiles would be a time consuming and expensive undertaking.. I lost my job due to the oilfield downturn so have labour and enthusiasm in bucket loads but not much disposable cash

I'm hoping power washer, and a putty knife / scraper will do the job but before I start has anyone gotten any recommendations ?

Thanks,
SS

 

[JohnT]

I'd probably start with a pressure washer. Probably make a heck of a mess. I'd be inclined to try it before it gets hot thinking the more brittle it is the easier it would come off.

My 2 cents, and it may be worth less than that.

 

[pooldv]

I'm thinking something like this floor scraper would give more leverage and keep you upright. Maybe somebody with a heat gun helping?

http://www.lowes.com/pd_588067-5183...pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=floor+scraper&facetInfo=

 

[speedysteve]

I know its an old thread now but just to let everyone know, I tried the heat gun, tried the scrapper, tried acid, then resorted to a SDS hammer drill and some improvised tooling from harbor freight ( hand scraper ) this kind of worked but patches of the " rubberized thin set" were so well bonded to the tiling underneath that is was a loosing battle and wayyy to much effort, I eventually gave up on the quick fix and just dug up an area of both the thin set & tiles beneath, saved up a little and bought myself some "real" slate tiles and layed them myself... lots of effort but it looks pretty good Ill take a pic & post soon...