Rehab on The Drought House started yesterday, and we’ve already hit our first snag…and we haven’t even finished demo!
Most of the entryway to the house (about 150 square feet) is hardwood that was glued down, and it all has to go. But, I’ve never seen this much glue on hardwoods before, and the hardwoods really don’t want to come up. The guys have tried using tile scrapers, an electric tile removing tool and even resorted to trying to dissolve both the wood and the glue with muriatic (hydrochloric) acid.
The acid actually did a great job of getting the top layer of wood off, but the bottom layer and the glue remains. The guys will keep working on it tomorrow, and hopefully figure something out.
In the meantime, the rest of demo is done, and sheetrock is being repaired where necessary and prepped for paint, and I expect interior painting to finish up by Friday (or over the weekend). Cabinets are scheduled to go in next Thursday, so that leaves three or four days to get the lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures and flooring in.
We’re still shooting to have this one on the market by next weekend, but given that we lost two days this week when our contractors were finishing another job, in addition to the demo difficulties, I’m not sure it’s going to happen…
Pulling up glue-down flooring is possibly the worst job in the world. The best thing we have found is to cut across the boards with a circular saw every 4-6 inches, then hammer and chisel. The flooring guys estimate 10 SF/hour for removing this stuff, so 2 guys should plan on a full day to do 150 SF.
I am experiencing my first time with glue except it is with two doors that lead to the back yard!! I wanted to save them because they are beautiful doors. But, for the life of me, I can’t imagine why they were glued shut. After we finally cut through the glue, it peeled off fairly easy.
My wife always asks me “What were you thinking?”
Now I wonder the same thing??
Don
Chris –
Fantastic advice! I really appreciate it and will pass it on to my contractors today…
Don –
I’ve learned never to try to get into the heads of the people who used to live in my houses. Most of them don’t seem to live like normal people, and no matter how hard I try, I generally can’t figure out what they were thinking… 🙂