Lifting loft flooring

I think I'd be tempted to buy or make a centreless hole borer and remove the plug of board surrounding each nail. Lifting the boards off should be kinder to the ceiling than forcing out the nails. Remember to number the boards since you will need to replace each board in the correct place - unless you intend to angle-grind away the nail heads first!

Nick

If the ceiling survived having 4" nails being driven into the boards and joists above I doubt pulling the nails will do any damage.

Getting the claws of a claw hammer or jaws of a pair on pincers under the nail head is probably the hard bit. After that it's just levering against the nail, no impact or pulling on the boards. A bit of scrap wood to place under the hammer/pincers to protect the board might be useful.

Even using a standard hole borer with a centre, use a larger size and drill off centre should work. I only mention cause I have a few of those that came with a cheap drill set and most of us probably already have them.

That is my concern.

On Monday 16 December 2013 09:36 Nick Odell wrote in uk.d-i-y:

One of these might come in handy.

Dig around with the pincers, worn out side cutters anything else vaugely sharp and pointy that getting a bit naggered doesn't really matter. The shallow depression left takes the head of the counter sunk screw when fixing the boards back down.

A Bahco nail puller would probably help:

However, if all you want to do it get some insulation underneath you could acieve that by lifting only a few boards and feeding it underneath.

Robert

In article , Tim Watts writes

Presumably the flooring is 3/4" chipboard? I would have thought the use of

With a bit of practical use, these things work well. Worth having a bit of scrap under the heel esp. if these are long nails. Certainly no more damage caused than by the use of claw hammer, pry bar etc. Otherwise a centreless hole cutter (plug cutter?) or an os hole saw with centre bit. HTH Nick.

Thanks all, this sounds like the least painful solution.

A lot depends if it's tongued & groved or not. T&G is harder to get up intact. Best bet to get them up is an electrician's sash knife levering against the joists. All depends on how long the nails are.

Start at one edge and work a long. If you can ease them up a bit you may be able to pull the nails with pincers.

I presume this flooring is T & G? In which case cutting out the nail holes may not allow enough wrangle space. The other problem is what may be under the boards in terms of plumbing or electrical wiring?

This problem is why I always loose lay loft boarding and rely on shape and gravity for fixing.

Get yourself one of these;

Has to be the Shark brand.

Simply incredible tool. Place the smaller end next to the nail head & tap with hammer. It will slide under the head with minimum damage & then you can lever it out.

This one look s promising.

Just had another look in the loft, and am even less impressed now :-( T&G Floorboards are nailed down every at least 10"... Cannot believe someone thought it was a good idea at the time (loft is only used for storage).

Mine has 2 screws in each joist on each sheet, so 8 screws per sheet. After doing a crude bending test on an offcut, I decided that any short, wide overhang at the ends of the loft wouldn't break, so removed half of the groove and some of the tongue. I can now lift sheets without too much effort.

I wouldnt try any of the suggestions. I'd push loosefill under from the boards you can lift. If there's anywhere you cant do this, I'd make a 2" hole or 3 to get loosefill in & patch them.

I presume the frequent long nails are to stiffen the floor structure by creating a stressed box structure.

NT