Alec

    Home Gym Project: Part 1

    Posted on 3 mins

    home improvement labor

    Table of Contents

    Before

    My wife and I just bought our house, which features this 20x22’ room which previously was a garage. We want it to be a home gym, which means replacing the tile with a rubber floring solution!

    Steps to the first part of the job:

    1. Demolish the tiles
    2. Remove the thinset from the concrete subfloor
    3. Dispose of the debris
    4. Clean up the dust

    Easy, right? Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned so far.

    Lesson #1: Wear really thick gloves

    Let the demolition begin!

    The final tile

    Painful blisters on my programmer fingers

    Lesson #2: Rent a dumpster

    I didn’t rent a dumpster and foolishly thought that I could dispose of the construction debris in a trash can and buckets. The trash can quickly filled up and weighed hundreds of pounds and was refused during pickup.

    Our trash can filled to the brim with heavy tile

    What didn't fit in the trash can went into buckets

    So yes, I had to manually unload the trash can and hired a trash hauler to pick up the tile. Paying a bit more for a dumpster rental from WM would have saved me a lot of headache.

    Lesson #3: Get a freakin’ dust separator

    Thinset is a real pain. It not only bonds to the concrete, making removal difficult, but also turns into toxic dust once ground. I went at it for hours with a floor scraper and masonry chisel, barely making any progress. Eventually I caved and followed some advice I found on YouTube comments — a 7" angle grinder, cup wheel and vacuum dust shroud. While being infinitely more messy, this made easy work of the bonded thinset…

    The issue I faced now is the vacuum constantly filling/clogging full of toxic silica-filled dust. This led to the exhausting process of stopping every few minutes, turning off the vac, opening it up, dumping out the filter, putting it back together and then rinse/repeat. I could have worked smarter by utilizing a dust separator, which is basically a bucket lid that goes inline between the shroud and the vacuum, collecting dust before it hits the vac filter.

    My rig, a shopvac hooked directly to the dust shroud

    It constantly clogged itself and led to a difficult, long process

    If I had a dust separator, things would have gone a lot smoother. Get a dust separator.

    Lesson #4: Handle the toxic dust

    A cloud of dust, going everywhere

    The dust shroud on the grinder isn’t enough, I should have done more dust control and paid the price (dust leaked into house and complicated cleanup).

    Half way done!

    Lesson #5: Hire a professional to do this nasty job

    At this point, my back, fingers, knees were absolutely killing me.

    My goggles would fog up with sweat and I could feel the beads rolling down my upper lip inside my respirator. My hair was so caked with dust that it was rock hard.

    I pulled myself together and finished the grinding. 15 hours of hands & knees labor later, I have a floor with more of the thinset ground off!

    I did a few hours of vacuuming the thick layer of dust off of everything and then a few passes of mopping the floor with a wet towel.

    All finished with the grinding!

    Was it worth it? I don’t think so. I did save a bit of money but my body was aching for days after this job.

    Luckily, the rest of this project will be easy.

    It’s a lot easier to add material than to remove it.

    Next step: Installing the rubber gym floor!