Replies

1. 
   Guest_ | Mar 03, 2000 09:19pm | #1

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   I have never had any luck taking up hardwood strip flooring. The nails through the tongues are the problem. No matter how hard I have tried a significant portion of the flooring is rendered unusable when it is lifted. The best approach is to drive the nails through the tongue by hand with a nail set. Once you have a little room you can also pry up the flooring a bit and cut the nails off from below with a sawzall. There are thousands of nails in a typical floor. Even if you do the best job possible you will have some loss and that means you will need additional material to relay the floor. If I were you I would leave the floor in place and consult a professional refinisher. They can fill the cracks with an appropriate material and leave the floor looking better than new.

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   Guest_ | Mar 04, 2000 12:15am | #2

   *Jimmy, Maple flooring is prone to quite a bit of seasonal movement. Depending upon where you live and how big the gaps between the flooring are, your best bet may be to do nothing and let the floor close back up in the more humid spring weather that's (hopefully) right around the corner. I have 1x4 maple floors in my own house. Every year year some of the joints start to open up several months into the heating season.Especially near the floor ducts. Once I turn the furnace off for the season they begin to close back up and by the beginning of summer you can't find a spot that you could slip a dollar bill in.The first few years it drove me crazy to see the spaces,now I don't even notice them. I know you would hate it if you tore up the floor, relaid it and next winter it opened up again. Best of luckScott

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   geoff_murray | Mar 04, 2000 07:40am | #3

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   I agree that it is difficult to pull up flooring without some waste. But if you are careful and not to gung-ho you can get most of it. Start from the tongue side;with a flat bar or renovators bar (from Lee Valley tools) lift at each nail just a little bit, maybe a quarter inch all along the board or the whole run if they are end I and I; once the whole run is lifted this much you can then go back and start again lifting the whole piece out.
   Good luck

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   Jimmy_Slate | Mar 04, 2000 03:30pm | #4

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   What is the best way to delicately remove maple floors. The floor will be relaid almost immediately. The maple is shrinking, creating width-to-width gaps. Is there another remedy short of removal? Thank you. Jim Slate

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   Guest_ | Mar 04, 2000 03:30pm | #5

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   If You are going to relay the floor where it is now and You haven't done a lot of this demo and save work have a hankie handy because there is no happy ending to this story. Leave that beautiful floor there, refinish it and accept the gaps. If You are getting a lot of seasonal movement see what You can do to stablelize Your heating cooling cycle. Skip