Recycling Red Oak Flooring?

[Ted Phillips]

Strange question... We are getting ready to replace the original 25-year-old red oak hardwood flooring in our house. It is 3" wide, 3/4" thick solid hardwood with poly finish - standard stuff. When the contractor comes to replace it, they say that they just throw it out and send it to a landfill. I haven't ever really thought about where old flooring goes... I know that it would be a lot of work to clean up and mill the old stuff down - removing all the nails, etc. Monumental PITA.

Does anyone know if recycling old residential wood flooring is done anywhere? I could see going through the effort if it was century-old chestnut or something - but regular Bruce red oak... not so much...Just curious...

TedP

[Nick Decker]

Sounds like a candidate for a work bench? You're right, though, lotsa milling, and I'd want to be using a metal detector.

[Yonak Hawkins]

If it were me, it would go in my wood stove. There would be a lot of work in recycling it. You can get red oak for less than $2 / bdft. I'll bet you couldn't even sell it on Craig's List.

[Ron Citerone]

If it were me, it would go in my wood stove. There would be a lot of work in recycling it. You can get red oak for less than $2 / bdft. I'll bet you couldn't even sell it on Craig's List.


What he said.

[Tom M King]

Check with Community Forklift. They can at least give you a tax deduction for it. They're just out of the North side of DC. The cleats should break off fairly easily, and the remaining head won't matter for re-laying.

[Ted Phillips]

Good idea, Tom. I didn't even think about Community Forklift. I went to a Lie Nielsen event there a couple of years ago - fantastic place, with lots of cool stuff to dig through. While there, I actually picked up an old piece of marble for my shop - it is flat enough to use as a surface plate for sharpening.

I'll see if they are interested in a few hundred square feet of red oak flooring.

[Tom M King]

It's hard for me to leave there without a truckload (or even trailer load) of something.

[Sam Beagle]

I’m a wood flooring contractor. This is something I deal with often. A lot of time what I do now is sand it down on site (crudely). Then tear it out and give it away to comping buddies. I have so much of it stored away I will never even use it

[Ted Derryberry]

Once I tore down an older house in a small town to build a restaurant. Word got out that the house was going to be torn down and a couple of dozen people showed up and asked if they could salvage stuff before we knocked it down. I told them to have at it. Somebody took out the carpet in the upstairs and there was hardwood flooring under it. Somebody else took out the hardwood flooring! By the time everybody got what they wanted I bet half the volume of the house was gone. Of course someone took the kitchen sink.

[Jim Becker]

While you can certainly re-use it, you'll generally end up with approximately 1/2" thick material. Remember, the back of the flooring strips are usually eased with a round-nose cutter and once you mill that off, you get what you get. If it's every been sanded and refinished, you may get even thinner material. You have to weigh that plus the amount of effort to insure there is no metal in it before working with it. But it can be nice project wood for smaller projects if you want to do the work to reclaim it.

[Tom M King]

I wouldn't consider using it for anything but flooring. If you knock it out lengthwise, the cleat will fold up sideways, and it doesn't damage the tongue and groove at all. It leaves one less fold,back and forth, of the cleat to break it off too.

Pulled up with prybars perpendicular to the tongue and groove, and it will be split up enough to be trash anyway. To do it lengthwise, you have to have enough room for a sledge hammer on one end, and a few inches cut away on the other end, so the flooring has somewhere to go.

[Bill Dufour]

When the neighbors house burned we pulled the beech? flooring and the plywood kitchen cabinets. The flooring was crudely nailed on the basement walls the cabinets for storage. The flooring actually looked okay but crude. Better then old tarpaper and studs.
Bil lD

[lowell holmes]

Try a few boards and make up your mind. I think after a few boards, you will know if it's worth it.

[Andrew Hughes]

I bet it not worth it. Im thinking after you strip the finish off you would have wood filled with sandy dirt red oak is very porous. I wouldn't put it through my machines I'm not a Red oak hater i have 3inch wide oak floors in my house.
Some woods just don't get a second life:(

[Art Mann]

If you ever took up T&G flooring or watched someone do it, you would notice that nails are not a problem. They are always on the tongue side and they are always very obvious. I use a metal detector for salvage wood but I wouldn't bother in this case. By the time you plane off the varnish, flatten the back side and rip off the tongue and the groove, there isn't much left. Someone suggested a glued up workbench top with the planks stood on edge. I would agree that is a good use for someone who wants to fool with it.

[Bob Falk]

As was said, contact Community Forklift or a Habitat Restore....many Restores will remove for you and you get a tax deduction for the donation. Hardwood flooring is definitely worth salvaging and is sought after by these "building deconstruction" firms (assuming it hasn't been sanded too many times). Always remove from the tongue side. I bought about 1000 sf of salvaged red oak flooring from Habitat and used in a remodel of my home.......looks beautiful and you can't distinguish it from the original flooring in the house. Removing nails can be a pain, but there are pneumatic ("nail kicker") tools that make it easy. Restores that salvage use these.

Bob Falk , Author "Unbuilding: Salvaging the Architectural Treasures of Unwanted Houses"

[Ole Anderson]

We carefully pulled up about 800 sf of prefinished 3/4" oak in my sons house using this really cool Crescent tool from HD: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/shopping?q=tbn:ANd9GcQJdBQNkWW2R5OQXWPHI9T2wAF9KLf HG-mTu1L7ev-m-ceHYtS2qE32okku&usqp=CAc Pulled many staples, not easy, ended up cutting them off with an angle grinder. Still had at least 25% waste with ruined tongues. Relaid it in my buddy's cabin. The rest will be kindling in his wood stove.

[Yonak Hawkins]

...you get a tax deduction for the donation.

With the tax laws that went into effect this year, this is a nonstarter unless you have a tremendous amount.

[Sam Beagle]

The floors come right out. We remove them constantly w a standard stanley pry bar. Bigger jobs we use roofing removers.
I’m a wood turner. So when I come across decent wood like braz cherry or cool pieces. I cut the grooves off the back and use the leftover for segmented bowls.

[Eric Janson]

Deja Vu. I am building a new house and the floors (5" to 7" quarter- and rift- sawn white oak) were installed over sub - floors which were too moist. They buckled and warped so badly that they all had to be ripped out. The contractor was going to throw it all away. But the ghosts of my Swedish ancestors would haunt me forever if I did not salvage the wood. So I stacked it all and when my shop is in order after we move in, I'll use a Lenox carbide- tipped blade on my bandsaw to rip the boards just shy of the tacks (it's impossible to pull out these glue- coated beasts) and then re- surface and glue them up for thicker if needed (they will be about 5/8" after resurfacing them.) Everyone I know is saying that it's way too much work. But I prefer that to being haunted ;-)

[Jim Andrew]

I removed some oak flooring once from a house my uncle was taking down. He said to cut wedges from some pieces of flooring and drive them under from the groove side of the floor, I took his advice, and after driving the wedges underneath, could just pick up the flooring. Still had to pull the nails, but that was not hard.