I am doing a bathroom right now, which is mostly a gut job. The existing ceramic tile floor is in fine shape, but, because the HO had hardwood installed some years ago, now sits 3/4″ below the level of the hardwood.

This serves me well, since ideally, I’d like the new floor to plane out with the finished floors elsewhere.

In the past, I have just tiled over the existing tile, as long as it was cleaned up and well bonded. No problem there.

On this floor, the HO hated the look of the tile and installed vinyl floor tiles to cover things up as a stopgap measure until the bathroom was to be remodeled.

The vinyl popped up easy enough, but seems to have been installed with an asphalt based adhesive which, of course, covers the tile. Since I would like to bring up the floor level anyway, and make it truly level (it’s pretty far out now), it seems the easiest thing to do would be to use some self leveling stuff, and float out the whole floor.

Thoughts as to whether I can put this over my existing substrate? Paint a bonding agent on first? I can tear out the ceramic if need be, but then I have another 3/8″-1/2″ to build up, which equals more compound/ money………..

Mike