Sorry, I really don't have any good suggestions for what to do with your floor, but you might also try posting on the remodeling forum. There's activity over there also.

If you feel like DIY, a roto hammer with a 4" chisel will make it all go away.

Put floor leveling stuff on top and cover with a laminate. Had friends that did this. Looked good and they even diy'd it. Was too costly to remove.

I was going to suggest same as lyfia. DIY

If it were me, I'd just bite the bullet and get rid of it. What do you mean by "terribly expensive"? Did you get a few different bids on the cost to remove?

Take a hammer and go all hulk on those tiles. Trust me, nothing is quite as satisfying as breaking a floor you hate into tiny little pieces.

Then go to Lowes, Home Depot or some other tool rental place and rent a hammer drill with a chisel tip to remove the remaining grout and thin set. Its loud and messy but not expensive. Probably would cost less than 100.

There are people who pay extra to have the patina that you have on your floor!

When you say you can't get it clean, what do you mean? Are you talking about the tile itself or the "grout" lines.

There are professional saltillo restorers. Perhaps it would be a good idea to talk to one of them - someone who does only saltillo - and see how much it would cost to repair and seal.

....Unless, keeping the floor is not an option, in which case it might be fun to rent a little jackhammer and take it out.

I don't think you can paint it. It has years of sealant on it that will limit the paints complete adhesion.

As far as the floor you have, I like it, so I second the recommendation to contact a Saltillo floor tile company to strip all the old sealant and start anew.

If you want to remove it, again the recommendation to rent a 30 lbs electric jack hammer with a spade will take it out fast. Saltillo is brittle so it will break fast and the grout will pop out easy. The thinset mortar under the tile will be a pain to break loose, but it can be done.

Out of the box........if you can tolerate the height increase, get some felt underlayment like quiet walk and tape it over the tile floor. Then cover with quarter inch cork underlayment (together these May bridge the high spots in the tile), the put down a floating wood/laminate floor.

I also like the tile, but if you can't live with it, even restored, I would look into an underlayment and floating floor. As pointed out, the saltillo with patina could be a big plus to someone down the road - a treasure like finding hardwoods under carpet and you could preserve that.

I like the floor, but then, I like SW decor. Is that where you live? I would get it cleaned and resealed,so it would feel fresh.

Is this all over you house? If just in kitchen, I'd try to do it myself. If all over, then I'd get some professional in.

Wow, same reaction here:
1. Love it.
2. What does it mean that you can't keep it clean? Looks good to me.
3. Remove sealer and start new.

Now, obviously, I don't have to live with it, but it sounds terrible to cover it up with some subfloor and laminate. Of course, someone else may be excited to find it at one point in the future :)

Why do we describe everything on this board that's dirty, scratched, or stained as having a "lovely patina." Sometimes it's just dirty and grungy and, for those of who who like things to look clean and not see little holes black with dirt, it just not attractive. I agree with OP.

I don't know how you would paint this either. Either laminate or carpet overtop, or just bite the bullet and get rid of it one way or another.

It does look beautiful when it's freshly sealed, but the DIY sealant doesn't last long and then it's back to being porous and collecting dust, dirt, hairballs (!), dog hair, and spills. All that "patina" has a lot of stains in it. I'm in AZ so dust is ubiquitous. I'd love to have a floor that only needs a wet mop every couple of days.

bookworm, there's about a thousand sq ft of the hex and another hundred plus of square because we couldn't find the hex anymore. Expensive to strip and seal (2K - 4K) and expensive to take out.

I really hoped that someone had taken the plunge and just painted it and polyurethaned it about 3 times. Sigh.....

Well, here are the instructions on how to paint saltillo. What do you have to lose? If it doesn't work out, then you have an excuse to rent the jackhammer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Instructions

1000+ square feet? You'll likely be hating your life if you rent a jackhammer and try to DIY. Personally, I'd be more inclined to remove it altogether rather than go to the trouble and expense of refinishing a floor that you already don't like.

We hired a company to remove the tile from our small kitchen before installing hardwood. It was quite costly. The young immigrant guy who does that work couldn't be there the first day so the senior flooring guys started out with the big vibrating tile and thinset smashing machine. They lasted about an hour before stopping. Then the poor junior guy did the rest of the work. He had to take a lot of breaks. Pure misery. I am SO glad we did not try to DIY that. I recommend that you get bids on tile removal if you're done with it.

I think it looks nice BTW, but of course you're the one who lives with it.

my parents have an entire house with saltillo and they stained it darker. pretty dark brown.

I also like it. sorry no other suggestions.

jerzeegirl, thanks for that link! It sounds super time-consuming, but I can envision a new look.

isabell98, how did your parents stain their Saltillo? That sounds very pretty.

jellytoast and feisty, no way I'd ever tackle that job DIY! I am quite sure that it would cost more now to hire people to take it out than we paid to put it in.

We have removed approximately 2000 sq.ft of Saltillo so far and have 4 bathrooms left to go. We lived with it for a couple of months when we bought the house and then decided it had to go. The color sucks the light out of a room, but more importantly the wavy uneven surface is not comfortable to walk on and dangerous if you plan to stay in the house as you age.

Yes, there is an expense and dusty mess when you remove tile, but well worth it. Can't wait to get rid of the rest of it.

"....the wavy uneven surface is not comfortable to walk on and dangerous if you plan to stay in the house as you age..."

Copy that! I'm getting to that age where I'd like something softer underfoot. The worst part of having this in the kitchen is that that's where I spend a great deal of time - and there's no place to sit. My spider veins are looking like a map of D.C. and my ankles are swollen at the end of the day. Maybe I'll see if I can just get it out of the kitchen for now....

Around here (So Cal) the cost to remove is about $2.00 per square foot. That doesn't sound like a lot to me, considering the work involved with removing and disposing of them.

When we replaced the original tile in this house, my then 8 yr old son and I removed most of the tile in a single afternoon. There were a few spots in front of the sink, in the utility room and the bathroom where we left small spots for the installers to clear before they started on the leveling. We could hear hollow spots and figured we'd do what we could to save some money, but we were surprised when a lot of it came up in strips. It is still messy and any broken pieces are sharp, so you do need to be careful and wear gloves -- at least. Knee pads might be good too.

The new tile was installed well and was very solid, but we had a couple of patches needed after the kitchen reno. The contractors botched the patching -- unlevel, cracking, grout gaps, and they used up all our remaining tile. After living with it a while, we replaced the floor and this time I had the pros remove it all. They were not enjoying the work. I think it is a job well worth the $1.50-2 per sq ft I have seen charged here.

If the tile hurts you, I would either replace or look into floating wood or cork over it. You can keep the warm look and get a softer step.

Just read that someone put a leveling compound over Saltillo tile and then installed HW and carpet, respectively. Would that work?

I love it...in your house. :)

If you put something on top of it, would you have issues with it being too high? Sounds like you have enough of it so most rooms would be level.

But you have such a big hex, it makes your dog look tiny.

LOL, fori; the dog IS tiny! The hex is roughly 10" tile. It is actually larger than anything we found when we looked for some to match. That's why we have squares, too.

Hi tomatofreak, what did you end up doing? We just bought a house with all Saltillo pavers inside and whoever owned the house before us did a horrible job of keeping them nice. They are peeling sealant and are discolored. I called a restoration company and the cost to get it stripped and resealed is $3.50 per square foot, which is outrageous to me! Wondering if you tried putting flooring on top of it without ripping it out. Please let me know. Thanks!!

Same as Jenny above?

We just had 800 sq/ft of Satillo removed a few months ago. I went back and forth because I really do like Satillo and dreaded the mess it would make. Now we have all new 24x24 light gray tile I am so glad we bit the bullet and did it. About a week ago I was at a charming boutique hotel and they had painted over existing Satillos with a white paint. It looked absolutely fabulous! I'm sure it must have had some sort of sealer or primer over it first. If I had seen that before we removed our Satillo's I probably would have tried it before removing just because it looked so great!

I am dealing with the same situation. My entire house is Saltillo tile... in Tennessee!!! About 4000 square feet! I don't like how it always looks dirty, it is uneven, lots of places where the sealant is gone, etc. Also it is hard on my legs and back. From my research, very difficult to remove. Do you remove the tiles only, or the 2-3 inch mortar underneath as well? How is it level after that? Ugh!!!!!! Open to all suggestions!!!

It is not difficult for an experienced tiler to remove, just very dusty. Our guy hung plastic on the walls as high as he could (our ceilings are 14' so it did not go to the ceiling). I also covered the furniture in the adjacent rooms with sheets. It really wasn't as dusty as I thought it would be, and the tiler had some sort of vacuum that was running the same tile as removal. They will remove the tiles and grind down the mortar underneath to even it out in order to lay the new tile. Even though we had new 24x24 tile installed he didn't need to do much prep grinding (and it is harder and slower to lay a larger format tile flat so if you go back with smaller tiles it will be easier for the tiler). I would say go for it. For 4000 sq/ft I would stay in a hotel for a few days until all tile removed and any grinding prep work is completed. Good luck and don't look back!

tomatofreak...man do i feel your pain! i have approximately 1000 sq ft of saltillo tile that is like yours old and dirty. i'm currently stripping and sealing my self! Yep on my knees etc...i also have two different types of flooring, in bathroom and laundry room. ugh..anyway, i did remove it from son's room, it was hard work but man was it worth it and kind of fun. I have a question to you, have you removed or laid a new floor on top? And there was a comment by chispa-when you removed your tile, how soon did you put down new flooring? thank you all in advance for answering my questions.

Zoraida, our saltillo downstairs was on a part of the house that is on a slab. The tile guys used jackhammers to remove the old tile, mortar and grout. They went down to the cement slab. They started installing the new tile as soon as the demo was done.

There is no way you could just lay a new floor on top of saltillo in most houses. Maybe in one open room, but it would mess up any doors that open into the room or any transition to other floor types. Uneven floor transitions are one of my pet peeves, so I would never recommend layering a new floor on top of an old one. My tile installers leveled the new tile to the harwood floors in the rest of the first floor, giving a nice smooth and flat transition between wood and tile.

Since I last posted on this thread, we redid 3 bathrooms and removed the saltillo in them. Have one more bath left to go. It is messy and can be pricy, but the end result is well worth it.

Lisadlu16 ... how big was the area you had done?

I am is Southern Ca- if you have a recommendation I would be forever grateful!

Chispa or all. I keep being told to do floors all at once but as many of you on this thread have said that sh$@t is expensive! Anyway any ideas on phased floor projects would be appreciatwd. Like i have carpet in all bedrooms. That is cheap to pull up as we can do it ourselves but should i do that even though Saltillo in rest of house two different flooring in bathrooms? Even phased approach at removing saltillo. TIA for ideas. Stay safe all

Hi Zoraida!

Hard to tell about a phased approach without seeing the floor plan, but usually for most projects, it is cheaper in the long run to get the crews in once and get it all done at the same time.

We spread ours out because they were very distinct areas. The first area was the mudroom, laundry, office, bathroom and playroom. All on the right side of the house and connected to each other. The rest of the downstairs had hardwood. I then spread out 5 saltillo bathroom remodels over a few years, both for convenience and budget.

If the saltillo flooring runs throughout the whole house I would save until I had the budget to remove it all at once

Also when we removed the saltillo on that first bathroom (that was continuous with those other rooms) we did not remodel the bathroom at that time. I made sure to have plenty of extra tile, so that when we did remodel the bathroom they could patch the tile under the vanity. It worked out well and the contractor made it work perfectly.

We have never regretted removing the saltillo tile.

Adding that it isn't the saltillo that makes the removal expensive, any complete tile removal project will have a similar cost to remove the tile and dispose of the material.

This blog gave me hope on stripping and sealing my Saltillo tile. Hope to post pics soon. Wish me luck! http://dusty-coyote.blogspot.com/2014/02/sealing-saltillo-tile.html?m=1

Hi all. I am in same dilemma with Saltillo hexagon old scratched chipped tile. Hard to walk on. I’m in So Cal area. Have gotten many quotes from flooring guys. I wonder if using a demolition guy for removal would be better. Or if the advertised Dustless removal works. PLEASE post any reputable contractors that have done your removal. We have been procrastinating for years. It’s time for us to get this done. (Love the staying in a hotel idea til it’s over) !

I had demolished and let me tell you it was a pain. Dust was everywhere. It was the only way to go but at least it’s now gone.

It woukd seem a lot if the comments on this post are coming from people who dont actually have this tile or experience with it we are currently in process of removing it from our home we installed it in a home reno 25 years ago and now are in another update reno. i have loved it but am ready for a change. yes to everything you said its so hard to keep clean and the sealant last 5 minutes. there is a reason they charge so much to remove it. Day 1 we removed maybe 1/4 of one room. we are very experienced DIY er’s and flippers definitely rent a hammer chisel of you attempt yourself and prepare yourself for a slow and exhausting process get your friends and family to help Otherwise i suggest putting flooring over it

I'm not sick of Saltillo. It's a classic that never goes out of style: