I am trying to remove wood parquet floor tiles. They have been glued down
with a dark gray glue onto a concrete subfloor. I bought a "floor chisel" at
Home Depot and am using a 3 or 5 lb sledge. Some of the floor is coming up
ok, but most of it is breaking into pieces and just not wanting to
cooperate.

Also, some of the concrete is sticking to the tiles leaving chucks out of
the floor. Deepest one is maybe 1/8" deep and the largest one maybe 2"-3" in
diameter. I will be putting a wood laminate floor down. Will I need to patch
the missing chunks? If so, using what? Redi-Mix concrete?

Any advice on making this task easier will be appreciated!

Now I need to get my wife to rub some Ben-Gay on my back. It's killin' me!


Thanks...

Chuck

Having recently taken up nine layers of various types of flooring (yes
that's NINE layers of wood, ceramic, vinyl, and linoleum in various
combinations) in my recently purchased house, I feel your pain. What
worked for me was borrowing a tool from my boss that he had purchased
for removing shingles. It's a steel bar about 4 ft long, with a flat
blade on one end and a handle on the other, it weighs probably about 35
or 40 lbs. Basically, once an edge was exposed under the floor, just
slam this under the floor and pry up, pull back, repeat. It was heavy
enough to chop through any nails that got in the way. The floor still
broke into pieces as it came up, but it was much faster.

You do need a uniform, relatively flat surface for the laminate
flooring to sit on, so yes you will need to repair the holes. Floor
leveling compound should work, redi-mix should be ok, but is probably
overkill unless you just happen to already have some on hand.

In your situation, if the parquet wasn't too thick and you have
adequate ceiling height, I would consider leaving the parquet and
laying the new floor over the top of it. The only problem might be if
the parquet was uneven. If you have the head room to spare, you could
also put down some luan to even out the floor before putting in the new
laminate.

"louie" wrote in message
oups.com...
Having recently taken up nine layers of various types of flooring (yes
that's NINE layers of wood, ceramic, vinyl, and linoleum in various
combinations) in my recently purchased house, I feel your pain. What
worked for me was borrowing a tool from my boss that he had purchased
for removing shingles. It's a steel bar about 4 ft long, with a flat
blade on one end and a handle on the other, it weighs probably about 35
or 40 lbs. Basically, once an edge was exposed under the floor, just
slam this under the floor and pry up, pull back, repeat. It was heavy
enough to chop through any nails that got in the way. The floor still
broke into pieces as it came up, but it was much faster.

You do need a uniform, relatively flat surface for the laminate
flooring to sit on, so yes you will need to repair the holes. Floor
leveling compound should work, redi-mix should be ok, but is probably
overkill unless you just happen to already have some on hand.

In your situation, if the parquet wasn't too thick and you have
adequate ceiling height, I would consider leaving the parquet and
laying the new floor over the top of it. The only problem might be if
the parquet was uneven. If you have the head room to spare, you could
also put down some luan to even out the floor before putting in the new
laminate.



In researching the NG before I asked my question, I saw a similar
suggestion, but they were dealing with vinyl tile instead of the parquet. I
may see if I can find one to use. I have about half of the floor up, but
it's killing me!

Also, everything that I have read says not to lay laminate down over the
parquet.

Thanks for your reply...

"C. Massey" wrote in message
. net...

"louie" wrote in message
oups.com...
Having recently taken up nine layers of various types of flooring (yes
that's NINE layers of wood, ceramic, vinyl, and linoleum in various
combinations) in my recently purchased house, I feel your pain. What
worked for me was borrowing a tool from my boss that he had purchased
for removing shingles. It's a steel bar about 4 ft long, with a flat
blade on one end and a handle on the other, it weighs probably about 35
or 40 lbs. Basically, once an edge was exposed under the floor, just
slam this under the floor and pry up, pull back, repeat. It was heavy
enough to chop through any nails that got in the way. The floor still
broke into pieces as it came up, but it was much faster.

You do need a uniform, relatively flat surface for the laminate
flooring to sit on, so yes you will need to repair the holes. Floor
leveling compound should work, redi-mix should be ok, but is probably
overkill unless you just happen to already have some on hand.

In your situation, if the parquet wasn't too thick and you have
adequate ceiling height, I would consider leaving the parquet and
laying the new floor over the top of it. The only problem might be if
the parquet was uneven. If you have the head room to spare, you could
also put down some luan to even out the floor before putting in the new
laminate.



In researching the NG before I asked my question, I saw a similar
suggestion, but they were dealing with vinyl tile instead of the parquet.
I
may see if I can find one to use. I have about half of the floor up, but
it's killing me!

Also, everything that I have read says not to lay laminate down over the
parquet.

Thanks for your reply...

Last time I went to ACE hardware, they rent tools. They had an electric
floor stripper. You might look into one of those.

"C. Massey" wrote in message
et...
I am trying to remove wood parquet floor tiles. They have been glued down
with a dark gray glue onto a concrete subfloor. I bought a "floor chisel"
at Home Depot and am using a 3 or 5 lb sledge. Some of the floor is coming
up ok, but most of it is breaking into pieces and just not wanting to
cooperate.

Also, some of the concrete is sticking to the tiles leaving chucks out of
the floor. Deepest one is maybe 1/8" deep and the largest one maybe 2"-3"
in diameter. I will be putting a wood laminate floor down. Will I need to
patch the missing chunks? If so, using what? Redi-Mix concrete?

Any advice on making this task easier will be appreciated!

Now I need to get my wife to rub some Ben-Gay on my back. It's killin' me!



Well, after 3 days, I finally got it up. I am now taking a break before I
start the new floor.

I ended up buying a tile scraper. It really didn't work as well as the floor
chisel, so I kept going with the chisel, then came back and got the pieces
that where still stuck with the scraper.

I will be glad when my vacation is over so I can go back to work and get
some rest!