One of the most sought after features in many modern homes is a beautiful set of hardwood flooring. That said, there will come a time when you’ll have to remove them, which can be a painstaking process. Perhaps you’ve decided to switch to carpets, or the wooden floor hasn’t aged that well, which makes it a safety concern for your family.
In any case, you will find that you have much work cut out for you. Fortunately, hardwood floor removal is far from unmanageable for as long as you take the time to do it correctly. In this article, we aim to help you do just that.
So, where to start with hardwood floor removal?
The first (and possibly the most important) step for removing hardwood floors is to figure the type of wood that you’re working with. If it’s old-growth forest wood like Oak and Douglas Fir, then you might want to reconsider and keep the hardwood floor altogether. Regardless of what it might look like from the surface, this type of wood is incredibly dense and is unlikely to have any internal defects. You can use a Storm battery powered floor scraper or anything similar to restore the surface and make your old hardwood floor looking like new.
Even if you decide to remove your hardwood floor, then you’d want to go about it as carefully as you can. Old-growth hardwood is rare and highly sought after by many home enthusiasts. It’ll fetch a reasonable price in the market for as long as you don’t damage it too much.
Proceeding with Hardwood floor removal
So you’ve decided to push through and replace your hardwood floor? Perhaps it was made of new-growth lumber that has deteriorated beyond repair over the years? If so, then the next step is to start prying open the boards and create more space to work with. This process is slow, so you’ll need to be patient.
To quicken the pace, you can make some clean cuts across the wooden board with a circular saw, which makes them easy to pry out. Doing so will kick off a lot of dust and wooden particles. If you’re working in a confined space, you will need a vacuum dust extractor to keep the work area clean and avoid inhalation of dust particles, which can lead to serious health problems.
When prying out the wooden boards, try to do it as neatly as you can. You can use a pry bar to free the boards. You would want to pry the boards away from the nail to avoid damaging the groove. This can be quite the grind, depending on the dimensions of your floor. It can be tempting to pry away entire sections of the floor all at once, but doing so will likely ruin your hardwood flooring as well as the foundation.
At this point, you should have already removed the boards that make up your old hardwood floor. The last step, of course, is cleaning up and removing any nails still stuck on the wooden boards and support beams. Only then can you work on setting up the new flooring for your home.