Poorly laid patio tiles

[Ingster]

Ive notice a load if my patio tiles were rocking underfoot when stepped on, so ive decided to lift them up with the hope of relaying them. It looks like they took the dot and dab approach (I’ve removed the middle bits from the pics).

Any ideas if i can lay on top of the existing edge cement and apply my own full bed in the middle void? The edge cement is solid (see pic) but the tile didn’t stick for whatever reason. Ideally I want to avoid disturbing the solid cement as I fear it’ll make the adjacent tiles loose as well and I’ll end up relaying the whole patio! They also didn’t apply any tile adhesive when laying, so I’d also do this.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Mike13]

You really will need to cut the top 1/2 inch to an inch off the existing strip of cement, do it carefully with a diamond disk cutter or slowly with a sharp cold chisel. you stand no chance of getting it to bed properly otherwise. you need to apply an SBR and cement powder slurry with an old paintbrush to the back of the tiles, after wire-brushing the back to get the existing mortar and mud off. you could look on my photo album on here to see the similar mess I was left with.
Another approach is to use one of this type of tool https://www.toolstation.com/roughneck-digging-bar/p48155 on my patio it worked fairly close to the edge just to drive the existing mortar down, then by hand/cutter for close to existing.
But all those other slabs are resting on a wing and a prayer anyway. I found I could lift many just by hand without using any bolster to loosen them, those should be done now anyway.