How to Remove Glued Wood Flooring and Engineered Wood Flooring on Concrete

Steps and tips for how to remove glued down engineered wood flooring on concrete with a pry bar and a hammer in my home. With 3 ways to remove the flooring adhesive (glue) from the concrete.
For 1 room jobs, I prefer to just use a pry bar and hammer to remove glued down wood flooring and engineered flooring on concrete. For multiple rooms, you'll probably want to rent a heavy duty floor stripper, or something similar from your local tool rental store.

First, you need to find a starting point. I happened to have a loose board, due to a window leak during Hurricane Harvey. But, this room connects to a carpeted hallway. Starting with a board along that carpeted spot would have been easy too.

Another way to start in a room is to cut a 1′ x 1′ wide square of flooring with a circular saw. So, to do this, set the depth of the saw to slightly less than the depth of the flooring. If your flooring is 1/2″ thick, set the saw depth to about 3/8″ deep.

That way you can cut your square without hitting the concrete pad. Once the square is cut in the flooring, use the pry bar and hammer or flooring chisel and hammer to remove the flooring from that section.

Once you have that square removed, you’ll have access to the boards around it. And, can begin to pry up the boards with a pry bar and a chisel.

How to Remove Glued Wood Flooring and Engineered Wood Flooring on Concrete

0:00 How to Remove Glued Wood Flooring on Concrete
0:30 How to Remove Wood Flooring with a Pry Bar and Hammer
1:00 How to Remove Engineered or Wood Flooring in One Piece
2:00 How Long it Takes
2:30 Should You Rent a Flooring Scraper
2:50 How to Remove Bits of Flooring with a Chisel
3:23 Using an Oscillating Tool to Remove Flooring Adhesive
3:50 Using a Flooring Adhesive Stripper on Concrete

Tools used to Remove Glued Down Flooring:
Hammer
Scraping Attachment

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DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional. I am a DIYer with 20+ years in home remodeling and DIY. Abbotts At Home is not liable in any way for injury or loss resulting from any ideas or information I provide. No single YouTube video can teach you everything you need to know or warn you about everything that might happen. You should always do a lot of research from multiple sources to make sure you are ready to start a project. AND ALWAYS follow manufacturer directions on tools! DIY AT YOUR OWN RISK.

#HomeImprovement #DIYFlooring #DIYRemodeling

[gjolinares]

You were very lucky! Who ever installed the hardwood did an extremely horrible job which made it come up very easily. It isn’t very often a floor comes up that easy they have to do bad prep throughout and bad installation.

[BBBruceinToronto]

This is very helpful. Thanks. I am about halfway through removing my (very well stuck) floor. Let me offer two innovations. 1) If you have an ice chopper for your sidewalk, put an edge on it with a grinder. It gives you a five foot long, five pound chisel to go at the stuck bits while standing up. 2). The really stubborn bits (and the dried adhesive) can be quickly smoothed with an electric hand planer.

[sandramuller]

Great video. I've just had to do the same myself (for the same reason, swelling at the edges - we take about 30cm from the edge out and lay a tile border) and what I found was really good for getting up the glue and stuck down wood chips is a garden spade (with a straight bottom edge). It lets you do it standing up, and also you can use your foot for a bit of extra power

[jonathanvelazquez]

I do this professionally
I love that yellow glue it’s the easiest for removing wood floor
Use a big 36 inch pry bar you can rip out huge half room sized sections

[matteolucernari]

Good job! I've been trying to remove a laminate floor for the past 2 days and god it was exhausting, I used a hammer and a flat screwdriver and tried to remove the boards like you did, I've been sitting during the whole process and now I feel devastated ahaha, anyway thanks for the video I'll definetely approach it the way you did!

[paulstein]

I had Armstrong LVT glued down 9 years ago. We are replacing everything with floating vinyl planks. The removal for the LVT was the same as you are showing. A miserable job for flooring professionals. About 2 1/2 hours for 125 ft. Sharp chips flew everywhere. After removing, they applied a skim coat. I asked why. They explained the old glue could be activated by walking on the planks, and cause problems. This old line family store offers and honors a lifetime warranty on anything they install. Not the usual once year warranty. They have to do it right.

[annheatherton]

Thanks for the video. I have been looking for a video like yours for several years. I have to remove my glued down engineered wood floors before I sell and replace with carpet. The problem is I don't want to create a lot of noise for the neighbors while removing them (upstairs condo), and I have cats so I can't have splinters during the process. I won't be able to do it all in one day. I can tell that these wood floors are so dried out that they are bound to splinter and come up in many layers which will make for a terrible walking surface for my kitties. I plan to do one 4 by 4 section at a time. I sure hope the installers did a horrible job gluing it down. LOL. My other concern is the type of concrete it was glued to. I think upstairs floors use some type of gypsum? I think it will also come up in chunks along with the glue because it's softer than true concrete.

[alpacaroket]

The glue did it’s job ! the underlayment/ self leveler didn’t stick to the slab which is why the planks came up so easy .the áreas where she needed to scrape off glue probably were directly glued to the slab, this job is never easy no matter the circumstance

[jotaylor]

Wish I had your energy. Thanks for your video

[eleets]

Great video! The previous folks who lived in my house applied sticky vinyl flooring to the top of hard wood floors. I’m beside myself. As a solution, I purchased the MEK substitute as an adhesive stripper bc the leftover residue is a pain. Is this similar to the adhesive stripper you use in the end of your video (and blog).

[MichelleJawors]

Do you need to use a roller as a final step on installing glue down wood over concrete?

[meatsteak]

Guys, I used a digging bar that had a tapered edge tobhet slightly under. That and the weight the digging bar had would knock the whole board off. I was doing what she was and it was half as productive. Other then thay guys for tough adhesive, get a hammer drill and buy a chisel attachment from harbor freight. Dont rent it, its the same price.

[BadAcidd]

Wish the floor I was removing came up that easy

[karlakay]

Wow So if on a wood subfloor is it easier to just remove subfloor, witj old wood tiles still attached?

[MrYayoperez]

Thank you for your good tips. I have to remove two rooms. Ouch!

[GingerHoliday]

Ug I’m having to do this on the risers and treads of stairs in my house. So genius thought this would look good, it doesn’t. And they added those ugly brass edge plates bc they didn’t know how to finish the edges otherwise. They are not coming up even this easily. I’m using the same method only in a lot of areas I have to use a scraper to start pulling up before I can even get my prybar under.

[ghostpepper]

HD rental dept has a machine that will greatly reduce time and back ache on the glued floor removal

[fingedson]

How much do you charge in hour .. so i can hire u when i need some help?

[regencymanagement]

Can this kind of floor be repaired or does it all have to be ripped out and get a whole new floor? Thank you

[kpcjezh]

A chipping hammer helps quite a bit too