Removing Backer Board from an Old Ceramic Tile Shower

A New Video on the Removal of Backer Board from a Shower Stall Area

By Mark J. Donovan

In the below video, I show the second stage in remodeling a custom ceramic tile shower, the removal of the old backer board.

In the process of removing the old ceramic wall tile from the shower the backer board became significantly beat up, such that it made sense to replace it.

Removing backer board is easy to do, however it takes a little effort to find all of the screws. Some of them were buried under mortar and thus I had to do some scraping to find all of the screws. Fortunately, however, I used screws when applying the backer board 15 years ago. Removing nails would have been much more difficult.

Backer board is constructed out of a cement based material and is therefore quite heavy. I recommend having a spare pair of hands handy when removing backer board. Besides being quite heavy it is also awkward to remove. In addition, it is very messy as the backer board breaks easily. Also make sure to where a pair of leather gloves when removing backer board as it extremely coarse and rough on the hands.

How to Remove Backer Board from Shower Stall