I am putting tile flooring in my entryway which has a cement pad...I have already pulled up the old vinyl flooring and scraped off the majority of old adhesive but am now trying to get the rest of the adhesive off...I am using some kid of liquid adhesive remover...my issues??

1--Using this liquid crap to get rid of the adhesive sucks...i works but it makes a gigantic sloppy mess which is a pain in my ass to clean up...Anything better/simpler??

2--Just how clean does the cement need to be of the adhesive in order to put down new self leveling liquid, cement, mortar, etc.?? Does it need to be 100% perfectly clear of the old stuff or just generally clear of the old adhesive??

How much of the old adhesive are you really talking about here?

You can just scrape down all the high spots until it is fairly smooth, then clean up with shop vac.

Mix your self leveling compound and lay that down.

That will be a fine base to install your tiles.

Use a good thinset mortar.

You should be able to use a leveling compound like MadMan suggested. You want as much of the clean concrete as you can get though.

Already scraped it down real well...just a film of the adhesive in most places with it being a bit thicker towards the edges where they put more down...I guess I'll do the best I can and then put down the self leveling stuff...

Dan sign up at the DIY Network forums. They have alot of people on there that know what they're doing and can answer your question.

In the last year we've tiled our foyer and kitchen. Foyer was a bitch - had to remove old hardwood flooring (couldn't be saved) and even after renting this scraper machine with a huge blade, we ended up on the floor with hammers and chisels to get a lot of it up. As a bonus, the hardwood had been laid so soon after the slab was poured that in places, small concrete chunks came up with the adhesive.

As Madman described, we scraped the adhesive as much as possible and used self-leveler in a few spots where needed. Once that dried, we laid the tile and it worked out fine. The subfloor doesn't need to be perfect; you'll see this when you apply the thinset mortar, which is thick enough to equalize minor inconsistencies.

The kitchen, though as much larger area, was ridiculously easy in comparison because they'd just laid linoleum over the slab with minimal adhesive here and there. All we had to do was pull it up and scrape a spot or two. We also used 16x16 tiles, which covered that space in a hurry.

Grouting is what blows, though if it doesn't come out the way you want it, use this grout colorant . It's easy to use, seals the grout, and is available in a range of colors. Once we decided on the color, it was simple to apply and looks great.

That's it. Just scrape it good and clean out all the debris and dust with a vac.

Don't mix your self leveling compound too thin either (wear a mask when you mix that stuff too). It should be about the consistency of a milkshake.

You can buy it in those plastic buckets at Home Depot. It comes with a bottle of primer that you put down prior to laying the self leveling cement. You can slap the primer down with a brush or even a roller.

You'll still have to trowel the self leveler a bit to coax it into the low areas.

After that you should be fine for your tiles.

Sweet...greatly appreciated everyone!!

If you don't already have one, I suggest you buy a mixer attachment for your heavy duty drill. It's something everyone should have in their tool inventory. You don't want to be mixing things like the self leveler by hand.

You can pick one up anywhere and they come in different shapes. The one below is a good all purpose mixer....

What is a cement pad?

Did you mean CONCRETE PAD?

IS this called a flour loaf?


Cement is an ingredient in concrete, just like how flour is an ingredient in bread.

Sorry for being anal about this - when I was taking Concrete Design class, the professor used to throw things at whoever mistakenly called it "cement". It became a running joke for everyone and we used to do it on purpose just to see the prof. spaz out and toss something at us.

Sorry...you are absolutely correct...please forgive my concrete naivety...