Just a quick tip
 

We wanted to redo the kitchen and all of the estimates were way out of sight so me and Google are doing the labor stuff. We're going with hard wood floors which is 3/4" thick, and if we laid it on our current sub-floor, the doors wouldn't open. That meant the sub-floor had to come up. We pried and pulled nails, and pried, and drove wedges, and pried. Last night at "dark-thirty" I had an epiphany. I have a low profile hydraulic floor jack for the truck, why not...........so, we pried up one corner about 3" stuck the jack under the ply and shazaam! All we have to do is go around the edges with the prybar and it pops right up.
Now all my wife has to worry about is that I don't take up the floor throughout the house!

Re: Just a quick tip
 

That's pretty funny. I can see how it could wok in some situations, and if it's all you got, why not.


Here is some info that I had to work for when looking for better demo tools. I will share this with my fellow board members in the hopes of saving some frustration.
If confronted by more demo I can recommend a few products that I KNOW they work.

Usually when confronted by ripping up subfloor I use one of two main tools for this:

Demo Dawg Big Dawg

http://www.demodawg.com/images/big_dawg_550.jpg
http://www.demodawg.com/product_list.htm



and/or:

The Gutster(when I bought mine they didn't have the smaller sizes)

http://www.thegutster.com/images2/closeup-40.jpg

(just watch out for the audio when you visit their site:lol:)
http://www.thegutster.com/
This tool works awesome for removing old decking too.


For other demo I use the smaller demodawg or the FUBAR
(mine is the original silver/gray color)
http://www.stanleytools.com/catalog_...99_mid_res.jpg

Re: Just a quick tip
 

I love my fubar(s).

and better yet the name.
if you need to pull out the FUBAR*, then the work is definitely Fubar'd

Re: Just a quick tip
 

Thanks for the heads-up! That's some serious stuff. With tools like that I may not be able to stop myself and THEN look at the mess I'd be in! :)

Re: Just a quick tip
 

I've used a roofing tear off shovel with a fulcrum and fiberglass handle in unison with a flat bar. It worked "ok" considering my lack of any specialized tools. Sometimes if you're lucky you can loosen the 48" width end and physically lift and twist the plywood until it pops free.

Re: Just a quick tip
 

good use of what you already have there. I like it.
2 summers ago I was busting up a concrete slab in my front yard. after a day of swinging a sledge hammer, loading it into my truck and unloading it across the street at the construction site I was wore out. then I came upon a 4'x6' chunck of reinforced 6" thick concrete. my back hurt so bad i wasn't about to sledge it apart. then I had an idea. I dug a 6" hole on one end, took the extension boom from my engine hoist and shoved it under the slab. then I backed my truck over the other end with a bed full of about 3 or 4000# of rubble. I placed my floor jack under the middle and lifted the slab up about a foot. next i stuffed a 4x4 under each side of the slab and backed my truck over the end. I let the air out of my airbags placing my trailer hitch on top of the slab. I wrapped a chain around the slab and the hitch and aired up the bags. then all I had to do was simply drive off dragging the slab to the designated spot across the street. walla!

Re: Just a quick tip
 

68C15, cool! My wife thinks I'm crazy, but that's exactly the type of thing I would enjoy figuring out. A lot of the time I go around my elbow to get to my thumb, but if it works, it works!

Re: Just a quick tip
 

The FUBAR tool is awesome. They make a 36 inch version that is very useful as a firefighting tool. You can tear a lot of stuff up with one of those

Re: Just a quick tip
 

I would have gone with engineered wood flooring.. I have red oak hardwood floor and am not the happy, they scratch, dent, have gaps etc...

I also have laminate in the family room since it's on concrete... it's ok but would fill the house with it...