I am having a tile floor in a bathroom replaced, and have to remove the old original "splash" guards along the walls myself, hopefully with a minimum of damage to the drywall it was fastened to 60 Years ago. Is their a professional trick to doing this correctly?

 

No, you will likely destroy the drywall. Best tool to use is a 1 1/8" rotary hammer (set to chisel) with the widest flat SDS chisel you can find. Use a low angle and resist the urge to pry on the drywall. It's doubtful it will come off clean so no matter how careful you are you will likely need to cut out and replace the drywall anyway to have a smooth surface to finish.

 

Like XSleeper mentioned, there likely will be damage. If you are lucky and the tiles pop off I'd continue but if the paper or pieces of drywall come off with the tile I'd forget being fussy and just rip down the sheetrock with the tile attached. Sheetrock is quick, easy and inexpensive to repair.

 

Thanks guys, I was afraid of that I've done a LOT of sheetrock replacement in a lot of different places, but never for a bathroom wall. I know some of them are already loose, so I will start there and work my way around the walls. I have a vanity that has to come out too that is fastened to the sheetrock too somehow so that will be another adventure in itself. At least the inlet and outlet pipes come out of the wall and not the floor like the toilet drain.

 

Well for the first part (removing the tiles from the walls) I get to pass go and collect my 200 dollars. I used my Fein Multimaster to weaken the grout on the top and bottom of each tile, and even some of the vertical seams. When I put the big chisel behind the first panel and pushed down on it, I noticed that the whole strip of tiles moved away from the wall. Instead of removing wall tiles one by one, I was able to just use the grout blade to weaken the grout on the top and bottom of the whole strip of tiles, and carefully pry them away from the drywall. (my best guess is that the installer used this thick aggregate filler as an initial adhesive, then used the grout to hold it together.and stick it to the drywall. After I weakend the grout strips everything came away from the drywall with very minor damage, mostly my chisel marks from prying. The sections I got done so far will need no new drywall, just some paste work. Thanks again for the tips!