We need to remove about 1000 sq ft of glued down oak parkay flooring from concrete. I tried a small section with a hammer and stiff pry bar and it seemed to come up okay. But today when I started the complete demo the stuf is stuck like it is part of the concrete! Of the few pieces I was able to get up some had bits of concrete stuck to them! So now I have to find a way to get this stuff off the concrete in a reasonble amount of time without using a one inch cold chisel and hammer. I went to the local rental shop and talked to the guy there who recommended a long handled pneumatic chipping device with a 3″ rigid chisel so I tried it. I also had to rent a trailer mounted deisel air compressor to supply enough air to run the tool. When I hooked it all up and stuck the chisel into the edge of the parkay all the chisel did was rattle against the oak and didn’t lift a single strip of wood! I was skeptical of the performance capabilties of the air chsel when the guy was telling me about and showed me a video touting its performance. The jobs the tool was used on in the video don’t compare to mine.
So, can I get some suggestions for the next mode of attack I need to use to get this stuff up in a resonable time frame. I was thinking about going to an electric or air chipping hammer. But I dread wrestling one of those beasts around the floor for two days or longer. Then I thought about really getting serious and renting a small bobcat with a toothed bucket and see if it would rip the stuff off the floor, at least enough to use a floor grinder to clean up the remnants of wood left behind. If that didn’t work I would go to a chipping hammer on the front of the bocat and basically chip vetically into the wood and smash it to bits along with a fair amount of concrete(which could be patched later).
Please, is there someone out there in this great country who has faced this task and conquered it and can help me?
Hugh Hadfield
Fairview Heights, IL
Replies
You need a power floor scraper. It's kind of like an appliance dolly with a motorized scraper (vibrating blade) strapped to it -- sort of a monster MultiMaster.
Try getting an old clothes iron or two and heat up a small section at a time to activate the adhesive.
The floor scaper tha dan mentioned won't do much on a glue down parque over concrete.
BTDT.
We called in an outfit that a riding type scrapers. They brought in both a propane powered and an electric (battery) units and took out over 2000 sf of parque in under 4 hours. The units do not vibrate the 18-20" wide blades, but actually can lift the front of the machine up and ram under the parque. They weigh enough and the baldes are sharp enough and set at the right angle to get the jop done quickly. It took a six man floor crew to keep the scrap they were popping loose out of thier way. Cost the flooring contractor < $600, and he had bid $3000 to remove the parque.
BTW both units drove throuh a standard 3070 commercial door.
Never saw anything like them before that job. The owner/operator said they can do ceramic tile over concrete removal too.
cleaning flooring adhesive off concrete
So these guys with their heavy equipment can get glued down tile and wood off concrete. But most of the glue remains. How do they clean the remaining glue from the concrete.
Floor scrapers of various kinds haven't got it done for me.
Purgatoryred
I've done it with heat and paint remover (not at the same time!). Either way is nasty and time-consuming.