Bath Remodel AskTheBuilder How to Remove Cement Board

Alright, the tile is off the walls and the seat is awesome. We've got a lot of demo done

I wanted to show you something, a couple of little tricks. And remember, when I show you

something in these videos, it doesn't mean that's the only way to do it. If you had 10

contractors watch this video, you'd get 8 different opinions or comments about how they've

got a better way to do it. Well, you know what? That's okay. That's good. I'm just showing you the

way that works for me. So keep that in mind as we do the rest of this entire video series. All right

Okay, so how do you take off the cement board if it is applied to a wall like this and you can't

get behind it? Well, I'm going to show you one trick that's worked for me. So in this particular

case, the installers used galvanized roofing nails to install the cement board. So that's going to

make it easier Sometimes you can use screws that makes it harder Alright so let me show you what to do What I going to do is I going to take a hammer and a regular pry bar and I going to bang the pry bar in so it gets behind the nail so we can pop the nail out It that simple Let me show you how it done

Okay, so you should be able to see this right here where I'm pointing

This is the nail, and, you know, they're scattered around the board

and it was driven flush, which it should be. So now we've got to get the end of this pry bar back behind it

and it doesn't matter if we damage the cement board. So I place the top or the edge of the pry bar just above the top of the nail, like this

and then I'm going to hit it trying to drive this into the cement board

All right, I'm back behind it. I pry it like that, and you can see the nail come right out

And it's that simple. Okay so all you need to do now is just you know like I said before just wash rinse repeat Wash rinse repeat meaning go around the board find all the other nails pop them out and then at some point the board going to get really loose

and you're just going to be able to pull it right off the wall. Be careful, they're heavy

Don't let it drop on something that's finished below. Just keep in mind that there's a lot of

grit involved and you want to protect everything below where you're working, including your feet

All right, now I want to show you how to get cement board off a trick I know when you have access to the back of the board

Let's go look at that right now. Okay, I'm on the other side of the wall

You know, remember, this was where the drywall was. And here's the cement board, all the tiles off it

And that's a point. You can do this with a tile on the board, but it becomes much heavier, much harder to handle

much more dangerous when it falls because it's heavier. So remember it's nailed in place

You can just use a scrap 2x4 like this Here a nice big 4 pound hammer Regular small hammers they just don have enough mass to really do what I want to do You just put it against the cement board here hit it and you actually blow it off of the wall Watch this

Alright, what do you think? See how simple it is

Sometimes demolition works pretty much fun. I'm Tim Carter for AskTheBuilder.com. If you want to discover more home improvement tips, go to AskTheBuilder.com