Removing Decking

[Tom Bender]

Yesterday I helped a friend remove deck planks at the house across the street. Since he was being paid I let him take the lead and do the heaviest work. The framing was on 16" centers and each 5" plank had 3 nails at each rafter. It was about 400 sq ft. The planks were pretty rotten and most of the nails pulled thru and had to be pulled one at a time. Most of the planks ended up breaking into short pieces using a sledge hammer. Most of the smashing was done when I stopped by so I just wheeled away the debris and pulled a bunch of nails.

Here's my question. Is there a tool to rip up deck planks with leverage or is a BFH the best way?

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[Tom M King]

There are a bunch of them, also called pallet busters.

I have this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JX9SDFY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Paul F Franklin]

I have the duckbill deck wrecker. Works like a champ, but one complaint: The spacing between the arms is wide enough to straddle a single joist, but not wide enough to straddle a double joist. On smaller decks, that's usually not too much of a problem, on large ones it often is.

[Matt Day]

I have the same one that Tom mentioned. Whatever was done to that deck was done like a caveman compared to it. Work smarter not harder!

[Eric Schmid]

Guys who have worked for me pry them up with a pick mattock. Leverage is great. They even pull screwed in boards this way. Put the flat end under a board and pry. Better yet, use two and work your way down a board.

[Ole Anderson]

Google "deck buster' and a lot of similar tools pop up.
https://www.google.com/search?q=deck+buster&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS944US944&oq=deck+buster&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l4j0i22i30l5.3210j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Frank Pratt]

Ughhh, that pic brought back horrible memories of stripping my own deck. Except mine was screwed & they had almost all corroded to the point where the heads just twisted off, leaving the shank of the screw sticking up. It took my son & I many hours to get them all out.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I'd consider a sawzall with a good demo blade. A cut between along the next joist then run the blade between the joist and decking to clip all the nails. If the puller was bring up nails too, that'd be better, but if it was leaving many a saw might save time.

[Rob Luter]

The pallet busters work ok. When I demo'd my last deck I used something similar. I have a 10 year old deck that I need to re-top, but all the planks are screwed down, Easy Peasey.

[Matt Day]

I pity those of you who said you removed your deck without a pallet buster. You could’ve saved a few years on the life of your back!

[Bill Carey]

Yesterday I helped a friend remove deck planks at the house across the street. Since he was being paid I let him take the lead and do the heaviest work. The framing was on 16" centers and each 5" plank had 3 nails at each rafter. It was about 400 sq ft. The planks were pretty rotten and most of the nails pulled thru and had to be pulled one at a time. Most of the planks ended up breaking into short pieces using a sledge hammer. Most of the smashing was done when I stopped by so I just wheeled away the debris and pulled a bunch of nails.

Here's my question. Is there a tool to rip up deck planks with leverage or is a BFH the best way?

465116


I need to take a couple of Advil just from looking at that picture.

yes to the pallet buster