I hope I'm in the right place.

We hired a guy to cover our concrete slab patio with 12" x 12" slate tiles. He was doing a good enough job but for some inexplicable reason he changed the pattern five rows into the job - he went from a straight pattern to a staggered pattern. He said it was due to imperfections in the tile, but it makes no sense at all.

He's also slowed to a crawl so I've decided it's time to send him on his way and finish the job myself. My question is this: I'm going to try to pull up two of the first five rows and relay them in a staggered fashion. This guy used TONS of thickset and I'm wondering if this is even going to be possible or if there is some sort of preferred method to do so. I would appreciate any advice you can offer.

Thanks,

Tim

if they were set in mortar then your out of luck getting these tiles up. Its going to be very hard to remove them without breaking.

Once you have them up, then you need to rent a impact chisel with a broad blade to scrape off if you can the remaining cement they used to hold the slate to the patio.

Once done then you can proceed to fix the patio.

Good luck its going to be a slow process.

Thanks. I know I'll lose the slate - I guess that's the price I'll have to pay. I took one up as a test and was able to get it up easier than I thought. But that was one - I have about 40 to go!