Lifting Chiboard Flooring

[Peter Johnson]

I got some from B&Q approx 25 years ago that was T&G on the long sides.

[Tim Lamb]

I have one. Handy for farm fencing rail removal where 4" flat head nails used.

[Animal]

Reading all the tool sugestions it seems this is getting overthought. Just jam a small point in to remove a bit of the chip by the nailhead, and you have access. Any vaguely sharp tool with small head should do it, even a screwdriver if you bash it a bit.

Gluing & screwing every 6" creates a stressed box structure which is stronger than just screws. But it's a pita later.

[NY]

Sadly ours was fixed by forces other than its screws. I tried a corner piece which was open on the short edge and the long edge at right angles to it (and maybe fasten by T&G on the other two sides). I undid all the screws and tried to pull at the "open" corner. Even if there had been T&G on the opposite sides, it should have moved a little bit. It didn't. It had been glued - or else invisibly nailed, though I scanned the edges of the board for recessed nail heads.

First rule of DIY (as far as I am concerned) is make things removable in case access is needed - so no glue and no nails: screws only.

My problem was locating the dead rat in the first place because the smell was so strong everywhere that I couldn't use the "getting warmer" approach to tracing where the smell was strongest. It could have been anywhere in a loft that was three rooms wide and two rooms from front to back. It was an ex council house and despite what people say about council houses, this one had been built very well. The loft had full-height access from one end to the other, with no cross-bracing to get in the way apart from at above head height (and the floor of the loft / ceiling of the first floor). And the whole area had been boarded, which made an excellent storage space.

So with no way to locate the rat by smell, and with sight only being useful if the rat had died close to the edge of the boarding at the eaves, I'd have had to lift every single board in turn, so if lifting proved difficult (glue) I'd have had a lot of crowbarring - or sawing, chiseling off the remnants and replacing of boards. There was also the little matter that the boards pre-dated the loft access: they were larger than the loft hatch... So I'd have had to replace them with smaller ones that would fit through the hatch,

Thankfully "my" rat was very polite and died within arm's reach of the eaves. I really don't know what we'd have done otherwise, because after a few days the whole house stank to high heaven and was almost uninhabitable - and this happened during the winter, so leaving the windows open wasn't a viable prospect. I wonder if household/buildings insurance pays towards costs of getting the job done provfessionally.

[Jeff Gaines]

The moral of this story is always breed well-behaved rats :-)

[David]

Google nail puller

[Vir Campestris]

Lots of people have suggested screwing down the floor.

Beware of the downside. If your house is at all damp, and the screws rust, they are impossible to remove. Far harder tan rusty nails.

Andy

[Brian Gaff]

Actually, the damage to the floor should be minimal I'd have thought. I remember some kind of tool that made a hole in the outside of chipboard so the nail head could be grasped and pulled out. The only issue with this is you have to fill up the little hollows and may need to use different nails to re secure the chipboard. It would be nice if you could just lift the one where the connections you want are. As for making Artex crumble, well that is a bit imponderable as its really irritating and won't come off when you want it off, but crumbles when you don't want it to. Some thick paint over it might hold it in place. Personally the best place for it is gone. Brian

[Fredxx]

Stainless screws or treated ones as used in fixing plasterboard?

[Chris Green]

I use stainless steel screws almost universally now.

[fred]

Years ago I had to lift chipboard flooring off a mezzanine floor in a warehouse, T & G and nailed down. I set a small electric saw at a depth to just cut through the tongue of the T & G. Thisagve purchase wlong the edge of the sheets allowing them to be levered up with minumum damage once the nail heads had been exposed

[Andrew]

I use one of these. Only does a small localised amount of damage to the chipboard which is easily repaired.

[Andrew]

For people with deep pockets, Trend do a router bit that comes with an attachment that cuts a circle and they also supply ?plastic rings that the fit into the hole and support the circle of chipboard that had been removed.

[alan_m]

Doesn't it depend on how its been nailed down? Traditional nails with a large(ish) head using a hammer or a nail gun with perhaps a barbed type brad nail with little heads.

Personally I wouldn't lift a whole sheet but instead I would use a circular saw set at the board depth and just remove a small section. Perhaps cut down the middle of a joist so that there is something for the removed section to screw back into or else install some wood to the undersides of the newly created hole to give something for the removed section to lay on and be screwed into.

[Jeff Gaines]

I am thinking of something along those lines but don't know yet exactly where the back of th kitchen light fitting is. It's a chalet bungalow so what is the outside wall downstairs isn't what is the outside wall upstairs, I think I've pinned it down to a 6 feet square, endoscope arrives tomorrow.

[John J]

I would chip a couple of small slots either side of the nail head and use one of these

Strictly speaking they can bash their own way but if you're avoiding banging hard the chipping reduces risk of joist bounce

[alan_m]

Unscrew the light fitting from the ceiling. Get a long thin drill and drill upwards through the hole in the ceiling until it gets through the floor above.

[John Rumm]

Last time I had the problem I used a long drill 6mm drill bit to drill up through the ceiling rose, into the floor above and through the floor. (I knew it would come out somewhere in an eves cupboard on the floor above).

Once I broke through, I took the drill off the bit and went upstairs to look for the end poking out!

[The Natural Philosopher]

That's what I did, a ripped a whole chunk of floor out and put it back with car body filler in rather a hurry because the carpet people were due. The replaced bit is not fully attached when you walk over it :-(

[nothanks]

That's one of those excellent ideas to be stashed away in case it's needed.