# Forum Home Renovation Flooring  Removing Tongue & Groove Floorboards

## Cooky

Hi all 
I'm a newbie here, and in need of advise. I've occassionally read threads and found piles of tips that are worth listening to, so I figured this could be where I turn to! 
Anyway, I'm putting timber through the house, and I like the recycled look. So a couple of consequent questions. 
What's involved with removing T&G boards? I've heard you damage a lot and it's time consuming. 
What about laying down used boards? 
At the moment I'm looking at a deal of 115m2 of polished tassy oak, 60 years old, 95x19, for $1600. I need to remove it. What are some thoughts? 
Thanks ppl. I'm a keen renovator but also a bash! Haha, good fun! 
Dan

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## BRADFORD

Probably the best method of removing the boards without damage is to rip the first 1 or 2 up then cut the nails under the rest, very time consuming but you won't split the boards or break the tongues.
Price sounds a bit high to me but I'm not really up with the price of these things. 
Regards Bradford

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## rrobor

When you say remove it, is this pull it up from a floor somewhere, if it is it wouldnt be my choice, Its 60 years old, it will be hard and brittle as will be the joists it sits on. the nails will be rusty and jammed in. As bradford says you could smash out the first then cut nails after that with a good recipricating saw as long as it doesnt matter about the joists. Waw its going to be a lot of work.

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## Dusty

To give you an idea on the pricing side of things, I'm currently paying $25 per square metre for second hand Tasmanian Oak flooring, that has been pulled up, the ends docked and squared and the nails removed. 
115 m2 @$25 per metre is $2875.00, which makes your $1600 seem pretty attractive. However, you're gonna have to factor in the pulling up, transporting and preparing the timber. 
115 m2 is a _lot_ of timber and even with a couple of workers and good lifting tools it's still a slow, tedious job, as you need to be so careful not to damage the stock as you lift it. Other wise it's a pointless exercise. 
The question that needs to be asked is "How much is the $1275 you save doing it yourself worth, verses the time and effort you have to put in to do it all?" 
In short, you could pay the extra $1275 and have your new floor laid, ready to finish, in around about the same time it will take you to pull up this lot of flooring. 
To put you in the picture, 115m2 looks something like this.... 
Lounge room 28m2
Dining room 15m2
Kitchen 8m2 
Hall 7m2
Entry 4m2
Bed one 15m2
Bed two 13m2
Bed three 13m2
Bed four 12m2 
In some of those rooms you will encounter quite a bit of waste due to the difficulty of getting started and with boards running under benches and stuff. 
Good luck with it.
If you do decide to pull it up let us all know, then we can all give you some tips regarding the how, what and where of lifting old, cranky boards.

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## Ronaldo451

If you have not done it before I would think carefully about taking on such a removal job. I have had a few goes at removing t & g floorboards from various parts of our place and it has invariably ended up with all boards split or broken. Even just pulling nails out has resulted in craters as they just won't let go of the surrounding material after so many years in situ. 
I am all for DIY where possible, and from the other posts on this it is possible, just a matter of whether the time, effort and risk is worth it to you.

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## frog_hopper

Also, do you realise that there is only a finite number of times you can re-polish T&G floor boards before you wear down the tongues? Just wondering how many times the floor has been polished in the past and how much you would have to cut back when you eventually get them repolished?

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## Cooky

Thanks all for replies. I didn't get them, cos of the sound advise you blokes gave me.  
Cheers
Cooky

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## Ronaldo451

Cooky, the responses on this Forum are usually overwhelmingly positive and very supportive for DIY's of all ranges of experience.  
Hope you don't take the advice offered to your situation as a negative, just cautionary to make best use of your time/resources and help you make an informed decision as to the best way to proceed (or not) in each case...cheers, Ron

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## Rubble72

If you can get access from underneath, another way is to use several hydraulic jacks along the length of the board to lift the target and several boards behind it at once. Use a piece of timber to spread the force across the boards. It should come up at an angle and you'll be able to remove the target board quite easily. Then move the jacks back a bit further and lift again... etc. All boards should lift intact. The nails may pull through the board but that's minor.

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## Pulse

Spoke to a house recycler once, he said he cuts the joists with a chainsaw and flips over the whole floor with his excavator. Then you come in and pry the joists off the boards from underneath. I found recycling cypress impossible due to splits.
Cheers
Pulse

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## mullfitz

I have the option of getting 90 square mtrs of some  old hardwood floorboards for 400 bucks but have to pull them out      
My question is if I used the below tool about 200 bucks to buy  would it be worth my time and what should be my concerns and how do I know if is secret nailed    New Inventors: Ezy-Lifter  
Cheers all

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## Farmer Geoff

We got 150 sq m of tassie oak TnG boards in situ in building about to be demolished. Used chainsaw to rip along every sixth board, including thru joists then lifted sections out, flipped over then with sledge hammer folded joists down against boards then levered them off. Fairly quick and joists made good firewood. Removing nails was slow, still to dip into caustic bath to remove a few layers of paint.  It seemed a good idea at the time....................

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## Micky013

im pretty sure you can buy special forks for lifting boards, they have two prongs probably about 400 - 500 mm long that sit either side of the joist, you simply cut out the first few boards so you can get it under and go along and slowly pry the boards off the joists (fork sits on joist). its not that hard at all and produces great results, 
we use this method for all floor removal - getting a chainsaw out sounds a tad extreme

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## mullfitz

> im pretty sure you can buy special forks for lifting boards, they have two prongs probably about 400 - 500 mm long that sit either side of the joist, you simply cut out the first few boards so you can get it under and go along and slowly pry the boards off the joists (fork sits on joist). its not that hard at all and produces great results, 
> we use this method for all floor removal - getting a chainsaw out sounds a tad extreme

  can you hire those tools   ???

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## Micky013

Im not sure if you can hire them - never asked. I think the one we use is home made. 
Looks like the one in the link below except made of 20 x 50 mm tube with longer prongs (can lift 3-4 boards at a time).  Olympia Roughneck Demolition & Lifting Bar from ALCATOOLS www.alcatools.co.uk - YouTube

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## qurm

I recently hired a floorboard lifter for about $27/day (from Kennards in Adelaide).  This was a very robust tool with two prongs that go either side of the joist (weighs about 25kg, and lets you put a lot of force on it).  These pivot so that there is no single pressure point on the boards, and are long enough to reach under two boards.   
It worked really well and saved hours of crowbar work.  It did a good job of preserving the 100 year old baltic pine without too much splitting or wasteage. 
The other useful tool was some long thin wedges (about 40cm long) that I made from a piece of pine stud.  Driving these under the board, along the joist beside the nails, helped to hold it up against any spring or tension due to the nails. 
Andy

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