Tried using a heat gun to remove old tile adhesive and it went sideways

I was stripping the floor in my kitchen and thought the heat would soften the mastic faster than scraping. It just made a sticky, smelly mess that took twice as long to clean up. Anyone have a better method for that stubborn black adhesive from the 80s?

4 comments

4 Comments

hollywhite2mo ago

Skip the heat gun, it just cooks that old tar into a nightmare. Get a floor scraper with a long handle and a pack of sharp blades, the kind you hit with a hammer. Spray the mastic with a product called "adhesive remover," let it sit for like 20 minutes until it turns dark and bubbles, then go at it. The chunks will come up way cleaner. You'll still be sore tomorrow, but you won't have that gummy tar soup everywhere.

reese_rodriguez862mo ago

Ever try a wallpaper steamer on that mastic after the remover softens it?

logan_mitchell2mo ago

Yeah I was a total heat gun believer too, thought it was the magic fix. That black gunk from my bathroom reno last year proved me wrong, it just turns into this awful tar-paste hybrid. I switched to a chemical stripper like Goof Off, let it soak in good, and it scraped up in these perfect rubbery sheets. Complete game changer.

price.ben1d ago

40 grit sandpaper on a random orbit sander. Tried it on a garage floor job nobody talks about. The mastic powderizes instead of smearing. Just hook a shop vac right to the sander's dust port. No chemicals, no heat, no sticky mess. You'll breathe through a mask though, that stuff goes airborne nasty.