Taking up ceramic kitchen tiles....nightmare or not?

[Baddz]

We re did our kitchen last year on a budget.
We went for an idea kitchen but needed lots of other work done like re wiring and re plastering which we hadn't realised we needed and so we had to leave the old floor tiles down.
They weren't too bad but the kitchen fitter damaged some (and didn't tell us!) and tbh they have seen better days.
How horrendous a job would it be to take them up now bearing in mind the kitchen is new and we obv dont want to damage it.
I would love black and white check board tiles (the kitchen is black and white)
Would it cost ££££?

I think it would probably depend on what's underneath your tiles, how well stuck down they are and also what bits of your new kitchen are sitting on them. Normally your tile will extend under your kitchen units but stop before the supporting legs (in theory according to my builder) but you would want to check to make sure you've not got anything sitting on top of the tiles that would make it hard to remove them. You should be able to tell by popping off your kick boards though. This is just a word of caution as we're just in the process of having our kitchen done and as part of that we had the tiles taken up and found that some of the appliances were sitting on the tiles.

To be honest it has been a bit of a faff because though the builder got them up in half a day (average size kitchen diner so not a massive cost in its self) they brought up a lot of the concrete underneath with them and now they have to self level the floor (£200 extra) because of the gaping holes!

I dread to think what's under the tiles tbh.
Everything the previous owners did was a bodge job.

I've been in this situation before and have done both - taking up the old tiles and tiling over them.
First time - many years ago now - we just tiled over the old ceramic tiles because we didn't want to damage the units and didn't have the budget to have the old tiles removed. It was fine but what I hadn't expected was that the higher level of the floor meant that the work surfaces all seemed a bit too low (I am quite tall) and the washing machine only just squeezed back under the worktop with a couple of mm to spare - so check that and remember it's not just the thickness of the tile but also the thickness of the adhesive.
Second time round in another house we decided to remove the old tiles (we weren't worried about the old kitchen) - it was a bit of a nightmare at the time - lots of mess and dust and the floor needed some serious levelling but we were glad we did it because otherwise we would have had the same issue with different levels in the hall and kitchen. But be prepared for extra costs as you never know what is underneath even if you try a test patch.
I love black and white tiles in kitchens - go for it - we have them now - porcelain from www.decortiles.co.uk

I'm going to ask dh to do it for my birthday :)
May I ask how much yours cost?

We paid around £32/sq m (possibly plus VAT?) at Decor Tiles - which was a pretty good price as they look fab and cheaper than places like Topps Tiles for similar. You can get cheaper in the big DIY stores - I've seen around £20/sq m in Wickes but they don't look as good.

I'm not sure exactly the cost of the laying as we were having lots of other work done at the time by the same builders.

We just took some up and they were easy but the quarry tiles underneath were another matter. Ended up hiring a breaker and smashing them up. Didn't take long. The floor was bumpy underneath but we used self levelling compound which is a sort of cement and it is now perfect to put engineered flooring on :)

What Nikki said. Ours had quarry tiles underneath that were impossible and I mean literally impossible to get up. Needed heavy duty machinery to get them up. And I'm not sure I'd do that with a new kitchen in place. Also, the quarry tiles extended across the whole room (wasn't an issue for us as we were gutting the room), so it will be very difficult to get the tiles up if they are underneath the cupboards. You then have the issue of trying to lay new floor tiles to ensure they "match" the level of the tiles you'll have to leave in situ (otherwise your cupboards will be wonky).