Breaking open a toungue and groove overlay floor for underfloor access

cf-leeds · 2015-10-12T12:55:08+00:00

My worst nughtmare has come true. I have a leak in a cold water pipe which is under the floor of the loft room. Assuming i get the leak location right, I will have to rip open the ceiling below the pipe, to repair it, then patch up the ceiling again afterwards. It's an overboarded lath ceiling, so that should be fun. If I can't get to the pipe in that way, I will have to break open the Oak T &G plank floor that I laid in the loft room, in order to get to the pipe. A s you can guess, the problem is in the middle of the room, 1 m from the edg e. I used tongue-tight screws to lay this plank floor, as it's on top of chipb oard. I was thinking of sacrificing one of the planks near the problem area and t hen removing a small area of planks. I figured that I could then maybe re-l ay the removed plank area and on the final plank, remove half of the groove and the end tongue, in order to screw it down from above, then fill over t he screw heads. Well, it's either that, or completely remove the half the entire floor + sk irting etc. Has anyone done such a "surgical removal" of a plank area and can you give me any tips, e.g. how the break into the first plank - what would be the be st type of saw to use ? Or, would you just tell me to bite the bullet and rip up the floow from one end. Just the thought of that spoils my day.... Cheers cf