Advise Needed

[GFRITZ1]

Have a small bathroom off main bedroom that has a dated ceramic floor installed from the 70"s plus two large closets off of it . We removed a vanity last night to start the remodeling only to find that it was installed on the subfloor and leaving a hole about 1.25 inches to top of tile. Not sure why but the tile install is as follow - wire mesh on subfloor - a 1 to 1.25 hard base of like plaster underlayment - 1/4 thick grouted ceramic tile .

Looking at installing a luxury vinyl product that will be in the bathroom (replacing the tile ) plus into the two closets where we now have carpet installed and it will adjoin the master bedroom where we will eventually put hardwood flooring .

So the issue is I have this hole where the vanity was plus I have the old tile . I can fill in the hole and bring it up to the level of the tile or to the bottom of the tile . But questions :
1. Is it better to remove the tile and then bring the hole up to that level and then do a self leveling over the whole area before installing luxury vinyl?
2. Or can I remove the tile and install like a 5 or 7 ply underlayment over whole area and install the luxury vinyl on top of it
3 I assume that it does not make sense to remove the total thickness of tile and plaster underlayment (roughly 1-1.25 inches) as then the toilet and everything would need reset ?
4 Would you consider floating a self leveler on the tile and not remove it ?

 

[highup]

Are you installing a floating vinyl floor or are you adhering it with adhesive?
If the floor is flat enough you could install a floating floor on top of that tile providing it doesn't cause height problems where it goes into the carpeted room.
You could just feel that void with a floor patch. Maybe even screw down some additional plywood to act as a filler instead of filling the entire void with floor patch.

 

[GFRITZ1]

Just starting and was thinking of a floating since doing it ourselves . Not sure of pros and cons of each? I pulled back the carpet in both closets today and they have a particle style subfloor below the carpet in each and as expected below the elevation of the of the ceramic tile . So think we are dealing with four different elevations - the hole where the vanity was , the layer of subfloor under the carpet in both closets and then the elevation of the ceramic tile and finally the bedroom floor . I will end up with a transition to the bedroom no matter what I do so not a concern . Can you lay a luxury vinyl on top of the ceramic and not have issues with the unevenness of the ceramic surface with the grout lines etc ?

 

[Mark Brown]

You sure can't... but you can patch the tile with Portland based floor patch.

If it was me I would gut everything right back down to the subfloor and call it done. Sounds to me like your tile are on a mud bed, which is just to say mortar on the plywood subfloor but mudbed sounds so much nicer

You can choose to do any number of things like adding plywood to the hole, patching, leveling and the like but none of that is really the best bet.

 

[GFRITZ1]

Thanks Mark - so you do not recommend laying on top of the exist tile if I understand your post ? Im thinking about removing the ceramic tile and then filling in the vanity hole with plywood .Then thinking about floating the total area with a self leveling compound .Is this something a DIY can do ? My concern in taking everything down to subfloor is 1. The toilet height would then change . Also Im basically pulling the filler out in the two closets and then when finished you would have a step down from the bedroom

 

[Mark Brown]

So if you pull the tile and get it cleaned up and fill in the hole and the mudbed is in good shape, SLC would be a very acceptable option. Make bloody sure you prime the holy heavens out of it but yeah, that's a solid plan. I just said "best" not only lol