Removing Glue-Down Hardwood

Glued wood is one of the harder things to take off a slab. The wood itself breaks up easily with the right tooling; the adhesive underneath is what decides how long the job takes and whether you need an abatement contractor.

Tooling

Wood needs heavier, harder tooling than resilient flooring.

• Wood shanks are built for removing hardwood floors, whether glued down or nailed.^[4]
• Use the same two passes as on hard goods: a carbide-tipped shank nearly flat to the floor, then a heavy-duty flat blade or razor blade.^[1]
• Sharpen carbide on a green silicon carbide wheel.^[5]

Machine size

Glued wood needs a heavy machine. For anything beyond a room or two, a ride-on or heavy self-propelled machine is the practical choice. See Walk-behind vs ride-on scrapers.

Step by step

Once the adhesive is identified and cleared, the removal itself follows a set routine.

1. Pull base, transitions and anything fastened to the floor.
2. Start at an edge or doorway where you can get the shank under the boards.
3. Run the carbide shank nearly flat, in straight passes. Let it break and lift the wood.
4. Clean up broken wood as you go so the machine isn't riding on debris.
5. Make a second pass with a heavy-duty or razor blade to take off adhesive ridges.
6. Pry up edges and corners by hand.
7. Clean the slab to what the new adhesive requires.

Cleaning the slab for new wood

The next adhesive decides how clean the concrete must be. Bostik's urethane instructions call for all cutback residue to come off by diamond grinding, shot blasting or scarifying before re-gluing.^[2] Grinding creates silica dust; see Silica dust and respiratory safety and Grinding off thinset, mastic and glue residue.

Common mistakes

The costly mistakes are about the adhesive, not the wood.

• Scraping black adhesive before testing it.
• Using a steel blade for the first pass. It dulls quickly on wood. Start with carbide.
• Steep shank angle. It digs into the slab.
• Leaving residue the new adhesive can't bond to. Check the new adhesive's requirements first.

Machines and tools we carry

These are the machines most used for wood removal.

• National 5700DL Ride-On and National 5000DL Ride-On
• National 5280 and National 6280 Commander
• Marshalltown Little Monster Pry Bar
• All floor scraping machines and pry bars

References

1. National Flooring Equipment: Scraping hard goods off the floor
2. Bostik's BEST adhesive data sheet
3. NWFA: Wood Flooring Installation Guidelines
4. National Flooring Equipment: 7075-8 tapered wood floor shank
5. National Flooring Equipment: Ceramic tile removal with a scraper

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