Can I Reuse Prefinished Hardwood Floors?

Older Plank-Style Flooring

• This type of hardwood flooring was common before the 1980's and 1990's when laminates were introduced. It can be found in many older homes. Typically, planks of wood were nailed down to a subfloor, although in some old homes they may have been nailed directly to the floor joists, acting as a subfloor and floor all in one. These boards can be ripped up and reused, but care must be taken during the process to avoid cracking or splintering the planks. A pry bar can be used on one end to gently pull up the plank after which it may be carefully removed from the subfloor or joist.

Tongue and Groove Flooring

• Tongue and groove prefinished flooring is much easier to remove and reuse, if it was installed as a floating floor. This means that it is not attached directly to the subfloor, but "floats" on top of it. The key with removing this type of flooring is to find the end row in the room. Remove the baseboard or the adhesive strip locking it in place and simply unlock the boards from one another. The tongues and grooves will need to be thoroughly cleaned before they can be re-used.

Glued-In Flooring

• Glued-in flooring is much more difficult to remove and you may have varying luck with salvaging the boards. Older glue will be easier to remove as it will have hardened and cracked over time. Newly glued-in floors will be much harder to remove. You can heat each board with a heat gun to loosen the adhesive. Once that is loosened, you can pry up the flooring with a pry bar. Care must be taken not to scorch the flooring with the heat gun. Once the flooring is removed, the back side of the boards will need to be further treated to remove any excess glue before the planks can be re-used.

Other Considerations

• Older wood that has not been properly maintained will be brittle and may be impossible to remove without damage. In this instance, you may be left with boards that require refinishing before they can be re-used or they may need to be trimmed down to cut away the damaged spots. If you are planning on re-using the flooring in a smaller room, this isn't a big concern. However, if the room is the same size, you may end up short on flooring if the boards are heavily damaged.