Freeze and pop

"The quickest and cleanest way to remove vinyl is to use dry ice.

Buy a one cubic foot block and have it sliced into one inch pieceseach 12"x 12". Lay these on the floor and wait for the tile to startpopping off. Make sure you wear heavy gloves, as you can damage your handswithout them. You can store dry ice in the refrigerator, using paper to separatethe pieces. There is no mess, as the ice lasts a very long time, and justreturns to the gas carbon dioxide as it melts."

Another reader, who refinishes floors for a living, cautions that anyoneremoving flooring materials should make sure that they are not dealing withasbestos, a common ingredient of many older flooring glues.

Jim Newcomer, who owns Columbia Trading Company in Portland, Oregon, saysthat if you are having your floors refinished anyway, there is no need to worryabout glue residue. "The first pass of a commercial floor sander normallyremoves all the glue," says Jim. "In general it is moreimportant to the owner of the old house to test the glue (for asbestos) at alocal environmental laboratory than it is to find out what will melt it."

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