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Anyone have experience tearing out glued wood floors?

Posted on 4/22/19 at 1:57 pm
Posted by Geaux Frogs
North Richland Hills, TX
Member since May 2011
219 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 1:57 pm
We are having to replacing our flooring due to some flooding. The charges for pulling up the wood flooring that is glued to the foundation is close to the costs of installation of the new stuff.

Is it worth the money? I have watched some YouTube videos, and it isn't "hard", just messy and tedious. I know that floor prep is key to the new floor installation, but it isn't rocket science.

I am all for paying professionals to do skilled labor, but this seems like anyone can do it. For my job, the tear out is over $2,500...I think it is worth the sore muscles and few days to do it myself with some buddies.

Does anyone have an experience or horror stories?
Posted by wickowick
Head of Island
Member since Dec 2006
46138 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 2:02 pm to
See if there is a rental place near you that rents the machines that remove wood flooring. Depending on the type of glue it can be bad to really bad. Floor leveler is expensive if you bust the concrete slab up removing the flooring, the leveler can cost most that the removal.
Posted by keakar
Member since Jan 2017
30152 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 2:16 pm to
after you invest all the time and money to get it all up, there is an 80% chance the sub floor will be damaged or need to be sanded flat and repaired so you can lay the new floor over it.

if you want good sound advice then here it is:

either leave the old floor alone and put the new floor right over the old floor

or cut out sections of the floor to go down to the original floor joists and start over from there. the cost you save in time and work offsets the costs of doing this and the finished job will be better stronger and structurally more sound.

you can cut out and remove the old flooring in just one day vs a week fighting the old floor trying not to do that and in the end you may have to do it any way

this advice is based on it being a wooden floor over floor joists such as a raised house on pillars, if its directly glued to a concrete slab then hire professionals to do it
This post was edited on 4/22/19 at 8:05 pm
Posted by Glock17
Member since Oct 2007
22829 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 2:17 pm to
I experienced this after the flood of August 2016. If the floors were glued down properly, there is really no easy way to get them up. Me and a few friends worked for close to 3 days to get up my living room, which is about 20X20 before we said forget and hired a dude who had one of those ride on machines made for tearing out flooring. We were just using hammers and chisels and banging it out after scoring it with a circular saw. It was literally coming up in 1 in squares.
Posted by eng08
Member since Jan 2013
5997 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 2:34 pm to
I watched a demo crew remove 20,000 sf of VCT and carpet glued down. It was a bitch the the handheld machines.

I suggest ponying up the extra few hundred bucks and getting the ride on machine. It went much quicker and easier.

If you take on tear out, be sure they still include floor prep and glue removal / sanding.
Posted by BengalBlood81
Member since Oct 2014
1324 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 2:52 pm to
like the above posts have said. It can be bad or really bad. I had the really bad after 2016 flood and I’m telling you there’s no way we could’ve done it without the professional laborers with the right tools and equipment. Not hammers and chisels.
Posted by Hammertime
Will trade dowsing rod for titties
Member since Jan 2012
43031 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 3:31 pm to
YouTube makes everything look easier than it actually is. If it's glued down well, you don't want any part of it without a machine. If it's not glued down well, you can make a YouTube video of how easy it is.

If you have the extra cash, let the contractor do it. You'll look back at your life when you are 78, and remember the good decision you made to not try and rip out glued down wood floors
Posted by Fratastic423
Baton Rouge
Member since Feb 2007
5990 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 3:50 pm to
Without a doubt this was the worst part of post-flood demo at my parents house. We had a very similar experience as the poster above (so much so that I wonder if he was helping me, ) Backbreaking work that we ended up having the crew come in and clean/scrape the concrete to remove all the bits we couldn't get.
Posted by eng08
Member since Jan 2013
5997 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 3:53 pm to
They have the machines.

The drive on one - dude literally sits there and it’s just goes real slow and flooring comes up. It’s absurd, almost comical, how much easier it was vs the handheld ones.
Posted by ChenierauTigre
Dreamland
Member since Dec 2007
34650 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 4:00 pm to
Once you do that, you will understand why they charge what they do to take it up. It is a pain in the arse. We will only do SMALL sections for repairs. Let somebody else have fun with that.
Posted by Geaux Frogs
North Richland Hills, TX
Member since May 2011
219 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 4:14 pm to
Kind of the mixed bag of responses I expected...

It isn't so tough that you "can't" do it, but do you really want to? Haha

I will have to look into renting the ride on machines and see how much that will cost.
Posted by eng08
Member since Jan 2013
5997 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 4:29 pm to
In BR, I think it was $275 for the day, but you want the ride on one
Posted by Cracker
in a box
Member since Nov 2009
18912 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 4:32 pm to
Here is what you do get a skil saw cut across the grain from wall to wall every 12 inches then get a hammer drill with wide blade on it start popping it off you will probably have to patch the concrete use a product call feather finish from Ardex.
If this is I stranded work why are you doing it?
Posted by baseballmind1212
Missouri City
Member since Feb 2011
3349 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 6:15 pm to
quote:

Here is what you do get a skil saw cut across the grain from wall to wall every 12 inches then get a hammer drill with wide blade on it start popping it off you will probably have to patch the concrete use a product call feather finish from Ardex.



This guy has the right idea. IF you do it yourself, score the floor first, then either rent or borrow a couple of handheld chipping hammers to tear the stuff up.

It will definitely be time consuming. But with the chipping hammers, you can take a 20'x20' room up in a day.

You will definitely have to float some floors out after though. So take that into consideration
Posted by sleepytime
Member since Feb 2014
3760 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 7:38 pm to
We couldn’t find any rental scrapers after the flood and ended up using heat guns with scrapers. It took two of us all day to take up about 200 square feet in a hallway and part of a bathroom and it was friggin miserable.
Posted by madamsquirrel
The big somewhere out there
Member since Jul 2009
53558 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 8:43 pm to
Rent the ride on machine
Posted by JCinBAMA
North of Huntsville
Member since Oct 2009
17985 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 9:10 pm to
Posted by Glock17
Member since Oct 2007
22829 posts
Posted on 4/22/19 at 9:53 pm to
quote:

It will definitely be time consuming. But with the chipping hammers, you can take a 20'x20' room up in a day.


We have a chilling hammer and it still would only come up in super small sections. It sucked.

The guy we hired with the ride on machine did my whole house minus the his and hers closets in our master bedroom in like 4 hours. He had to end up doing the 2 closets by hand because the machine wouldn’t fit in them and it took his crew 8 hours to do the 2 closets
Posted by Geaux Frogs
North Richland Hills, TX
Member since May 2011
219 posts
Posted on 4/23/19 at 2:23 pm to
My insured loss is only about 40% of my wood floors. I want to keep the wood floors in my house consistent, regardless of if they are in "line of sight" or through a doorway, so we are having to come out of pocket for a floor renovation that we were not expecting. It is ridiculously expensive. $2500 is to remove the damaged floors, like I said, that is only about half of what needs to come up.

I am just looking for ways to stretch my dollars.
Posted by Cracker
in a box
Member since Nov 2009
18912 posts
Posted on 4/23/19 at 5:06 pm to
diy rent the big machine
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