hello! if i have a connected dining room/kitchen and the kitchen has ceramic tile (that is old) and the dining room has carpet, can i just rip up the carpet and install vinyl tile over the ceramic then over the sub-floor without any issues?
Yes, Vinyl can be installed over the top of vinyl. If it is sheet vinyl inspect for loose areas and cut a seam and reglue it down. If it is square (or similiar) tiles inspect each piece and if loose re-glue. There is no problem with laying over top of the old floor. I have renovated numerous homes and for mediocre money you can make a old floor look nice.
You will probably run into a height issue. The carpet and ceramic tile generally have the same heights. When you tear up the carpet the pad and carpet thickness add up to the same height as the tile. The vinyl tile is usually very thin and if you just place it over the ceramic tile and try to go directly into the other areas, it will drop and create problems. Unfortunately the only way to get around that is to remove the old ceramic tile.
You could, but it would look good or wear well. The will probably be a height difference between the ceramic tile and the sub-floor under the carpet. The vinyl tile will not lay smoothly over the ceramic tile. It may not adhere to the ceramic tile. It is a bit more work to remove the ceramic tile, but the end result will be worth i. Since the ceramic tile is old, it will probably come up easily. Bottom line--take up the ceramic tile and do the job right.
Sorry, read here yesterday that the vinyl tile adhesive will not adhere to ceramic tiles well but I'm not sure that's true and you cannot put any vinyl tiles over the ceramic tiles anyway because of the grout joints. There needs to be a very good smooth surface everywhere for any type of vinyl tiles or sheet vinyl flooring. The vinyl will sink into every grout line/joint and break as well as look terrible too. You will need to install some plywood underlayment over the existing ceramic tile first to give you a smooth sub-floor (most likely the 1/2 inch thick plywood). Or you could remove the existing ceramic tile and all the grout patch any rough /or uneven places on the existing plywood sub-floor and then install the new tile. Now you can put vinyl tiles over the wood sub-floor. There may be some uneven places or rough places where you'd need to use some floor patch /or floor leveler first. They make different size styles of floor transitions where the two floors meet so to give you a nice transition and look (if the kitchen floor is left the same or you installed underlayment and new tile).
The most important thing is the floor must be solid, no soft spots or flexing! Typically the old tile must come up first, I wouldn't recommend installing tile over tile, and I set a lot of tile as I am a general contractor and remod kitchens and baths for a living. What I would recommend is... Call a place that sells tile, they will tell you exactly what you need to do and how to do it!
