I am installing BR-111 Eng. Brazilian Cherry in my entry and adjoining dining room but I have problems, the entry was tile and the dining room carpet.

I have removed ceramic tile from my entry by breaking it up with a sledge hammer and scraping the tile off with a floor scraper but there are lots of areas that the concrete mortor will not come up with a scraper and the floor is terribly uneven.

I have called numorous contractors and none of them seem to want to tackle this job or either leveling or grinding this small area, all of them say I should lay wood floor over it and not worry about it but I know that it is way out of the 3/16" -10ft or 1/8" - 6ft minimum.

What should we do? My options are:

1. Try to find a grinder? for rent and make a mess out of the house by grinding away the mortor.

2. use a floor leveler and coat the entire area until it covers the highest spot.

3. give up? Not an option, but I feel like it!

Thanks in advance, I want to find an option and finish the work this weekend.

Rob

If you do not want to grind off the adhesive/thin set, you could either;
1) Overlay the entire new hardwood floor areas with 3/8" CDX plywood. I have done this in exactly the same situation as yours.
2) Cut out the section of subfloor that has the adhesive over if and replace just that section of subloor. If you are not up on framing, you should hire a handymen/ jack of all trades to do this as it needs to be done right. A contractor wouldn't want to be bothered with a job of this size.

I would not lay over an uneven subfloor nor would I try to float it.

Buy a 5 dollar carborundum concrete rubbing stone. It should not take all that long to knock the stuff smooth or gone.(gone is better)
Level the floor with shingles, rolled roofing or 30 pound felt.

I assumed you were on a wood subfloor. Are you on wood or concrete? If concrete, the tile setters used thin set to install the tile floor. Continue scraping, try a razor scraper. It will come off; just takes lots of elbow grease. If your tile was glued to a wood subfloor, that is a different mastic than thin set and is horrible to remove. No stone or scraper will get that off. Consider renting a 7" angle grinder with 16 grit discs and grind the crap off. You'll go through quite a few discs because the adhesive will heat up, become soft again and stick to the sandpaper disc clogging it up

The description sounds like a concrete sub-floor. If so, Rent a hand grinder and grind.
If wood sub-floor: cut it out and replace the sub-floor.

Thanks, So far so good, I have a hand grinder and a scraper and worked for about 5 hours today scraping and gringing. I have about 75% finished with very good results, I should finish tomorrow.

I expect the wood to arrive next week and I am going to let it sit for 10-12 days before I start the install. I'm sure I'll have questions as I go so look for them here

Thank you for your responses!