Cross Section Of Kitchen Floor

[jyl]

My son has developed a technique. He saws the grout lines then drives a chisel between the tiles, and is able to take each square out intact. Not that we care if the tiles and backer are intact, but not leaving crumbled backer adhered to the plywood will, we think, make it easier to find the fasteners holding down the plywood. We want to leave the original T&G in place to assess if it can be sanded and salvaged. That would save me some money, if so. The dust accumulation on everything is incredible. c

[jyl]

Hey greg and other floor guys . . .

In one test area where I pulled up the plywood subfloor, there is vinyl tile glued on to the original wood floor. Which is interesting, because there wasn’t any vinyl tile in the first test area. The vinyl tile isn’t too hard to get up, but the adhesive is a pain. What do you use to get that up? I’m thinking rent a floor buffer with a Diamabrush floor tool, HEPA dust collection, respirator?

[look 171]

I suggest you get the vinyl and the glue tested for asbestos. Look for a local lab and it isn't that much money 50-100 bucks. I don't remember what year they stopped with the asbestos in those products? Maybe late 70s?

[gregpark]

The sub floor is the plywood, 1x6 or whatever that is attached to your joists when the house was built. You're probably talking about a thinner plywood or particle board underlayment nailed or stapled to the subfloor.
Do I have this right? the tile in question was glued directly to the subfloor? If so, I would just cover it with the new flooring and not disturb it. It's my opinion that you're certain to end up doing me floor covering of some kind anyway. Too much stuff going on to think you are going to salvage the old floor. The tile you're talking about is thin vinyl right? ⅛" thick or a sixteenth. If your tile was installed prior to 1972 then it is VAT (Vinyl Asbestos Tile) if the tile was made after 1972 it's VCT ( Vinyl Composition Tile). It doesn't matter. Chip it up and leave the adhesive or leave it all if it doesn't cause an elevation problem. Whatever you do, do not alert authorities to a possible asbestos contamination. The odds are it will be recorded and must be disclosed upon sale of your house. If it's VAT so what? Asbestos is harmless unless it's sanded and airborne. It's not poisonous it's a narural irritant. Tiny crystal shards can get stuck in your lungs. Totally harmless as long as you don't get it airborne. Chip it up if you must with a Scraper. I use the telescopic stand up 8" razor scrapers. On a wood subfloor the razor blade will dig in so I turn the blade around backwards. That's the tool you should have used to remove the thick rubber tile. I have a jumbo pack of new blades on hand and slice it off. You don't try to take an 8" swath, rather a sweeping motion cutting an inch or so at a time and when you have a few inches of rubber flap interfering with slicing cut it off with a skill saw set at the thickness of the rubber. 2 guys working a 200 square foot room can have it up by lunch this way.

[jyl]

Thanks!

I'm sorry, I haven't been clear. So far, I've found, going from the top down:
- stone tile (now removed)
- concrete/mesh backer board (removed)
- plywood (now exposed, backer board nails removed, still has some screws, also many clumps of thinset and pieces of backer board still remaining)
- thin vinyl flooring (in one test spot where I pulled the plywood, but not in the other? mysterious.)
- the original tongue and groove wood floor (where I've found the edge, measures 7/8" thick)
- I do not know if there is anything between the above and the below layers. Doesn't seem important to find out.
- the original diagonal slat subfloor (seen from the basement)

After I get the cabinets out and plywood off, I am going to seal up the kitchen (doors, floor vent, hood, even the car door), set up all my Covid-era HEPA air cleaners, don my respirator, and scrape off the vinyl and its adhesive in a few test spots, then see how the T&G wood looks. If it looks salvageable, I'll continue to remove the rest of the vinyl and adhesive, then wipe down the kitchen and leave it sealed up with HEPA cleaners going for a day. if not, I'll put down fresh plywood and then a new floor.

The issue, besides that I'd ideally like to salvage the original floor (vintage cool plus $) is that I really want the kitchen floor level with the rest of the house. Also, they laid the stone tile only up to the old built-in cabinets, but my new cabinets are freestanding, so they need a floor under them.

I don't mind if the original floor looks worn and patched (patina, baby), although if I really have 7/8" to work with, I suspect I can sand it down to reasonably fresh wood in most spots.

Sigh. This is a lot of work, and we're having a heat wave. But I'm behind schedule and have to press on.

[gregpark]

Ive done lots of sand and finish original floors for people. It's going to be very rustic if you're ok with that. Personally, I love it. The more rustic the better. Most everyone wants perfect wood floors...boring!
On adhesive removal, there's never been asbestos used in any VAT adhesive. If it's black it's old school Asphalt cut back. Really nasty messy stuff and a challenge to clean up. Back in the day we used gasoline to thin it on cold days to trowel it out. It's not toxic in itself but you'll be using a powerful solvent to clean it up.

[jyl]

We are getting the plywood out, which is not effortless as there are screws we don’t find until the plywood is tearing apart. But it’s going quickly enough. We’ll have it all out by this time tomorrow.

There’s square vinyl tile under. I’m taking Friday off to work on it, figure on using a scraper tool to pull off the tile (a power scraper would be too rough on the wood?) and then rent a floor buffer with a Diamabrush or similar cutter tool to get the glue off. With respirator, etc. I’m doing that part myself. If one of us gets exposed to bad stuff, I want it to be me rather than my son. Hopefully by Saturday I’ll be renting a floor sander and on Sunday, laying down some finishing stuff.

I got the best look so far at the original wood floor. That’s where a cabinet used to be, they laid vinyl tile around it, so it is probably better condition than the places that were walked on. I’ve wiped down the middle bit with a wet sponge. It is indeed thick, close to an inch. I think-hope it will sand and finish pretty well.

(That is the original wood floor, isn’t it? Not a second subfloor? It is on top of the diagonal slat subfloor I see from the basement? I don’t think these old houses used multiple layers of subfloor.)

I don’t know wood types. Someone upthread said fir, I can’t argue either way. What would you finish it with?

[gregpark]

Looks like 1x4 T&G Fir. It also looks like old growth, tight grain which is cool. You'd have a hard time buying that stuff these days. The old stuff was generally long boards too so fewer butt joints. It's rough sawn under the cabinet but could have been sanded and finished in the main room. If I were you, after removing the plywood, I would pop up several tiles (carefully not digging into the Fir ) and test sand at least a 3x3 area. Wet it down and you'll see what it will look like finished. You'll also find out how to remove the tile adhesive with the test spot. If it seems viable to do the whole room rent a drum sander and edger and sand it with 80 grit. Vacuum thoroughly including the all the seams and voids.Then buy a gallon of filler and using a 6" flexible sheet rock knife (putty knife) fill all the joints. Don't try to level the filler, leave it standing proud. After sitting over night sand with 120 and apply sanding sealer. Let sit over night again and apply 2 coats of polyurethane finish. I would suggest water based in satin. Anything shiny will really expose sanding errors and everything else. Pictured below is what I use but any sandable wood filler for Pine or Fir will work. Good luck. It could turn out to be a really nice floor

[jyl]

Interesting scraping the vinyl tile. Sometimes it is easy, get in a rythym with the long handled scraper and the tile peels off in long sheets. Other times there is an area where the tile was really stuck down, and instead of peeling off, the tile splits into layers and the bottom greenish layers are firmly stuck down and impossible to catch with the scraper. I rented a small power floor scraper, and it can get under those layers and lift them, so the manual scraping can resume. The power scraper can also shave down thick areas of adhesive (cutback?) to leave just a thin coating. So far, gouges etc to the wood are, err, few and acceptable. Well, there is that one spot . . . All in all, much much nicer work than cutting out stone tile and WonderBoard, but not as nice as removing plywood.

I struggle to understand what they were doing here. Most of the kitchen has that thin vinyl tile stuck down with cutback. But there are areas where they screwed down thin 2” wide strips of wood, about 12” spaced, and filled the areas between them with a sort of super thin plaster or ceramic material. That is easily to take up, the power scraper goes through it like mowing a lawn. Until it hits a screw, which you can’t see. I’ve had to hammer the blade edge straight several times. Was that wood strip/plaster area considered decorative? Bizarre.

Hmm, there used to be a mudroom off the end of the kitchen. They made it into an extension of the kitchen, with a 2’ stub of the old wall left to define an alcove at the end of the kitchen, French Doors to a small deck, and a half-bathroom. All very well, except that the 1x4 fir flooring is interrupted where the wall between the mudroom and kitchen was removed. No biggie, I’ll rip down some of the old studs I’m pulling out of here to fill that gap. The discontinuity will tell the story of the house. And those old studs are beautiful old growth wood.

[gregpark]

The vinyl tiles are usually really stuck to the floor where foot traffic is more prevalent. Scrape off as much of the black cut back adhesive as you can. It will save you when you chemically remove the residue. That stuff is horrible. It loads up sand paper and transfers everywhere when hit with solvent. Hopefully you won't run into plywood patches. There's usually a reason why someone covers up a wood floor with vinyl.

[jyl]

Man, in about 5% of the area, the vinyl tiles were incredibly stuck down. The long handled scraper didn’t work, the power scraper didn’t work, even a sharp hand scraper and a hammer didn’t work. In one place, that 5hit cutback pulled big chunks out of the wood floor when it came free.

So I have a little patching to do, I’ll use a router, cut the damaged area to a uniform depth, then glue in old growth wood that I’ll rip from one of the original studs. It’ll be a visible patch, but an interesting one, the floor will tell its story. I will have to patch the places where the mudroom wall used to be, anyway.

Near the end, I finally found what does work on the incredibly stuck down tiles and cutback. A multitool. It slices the stuff right off.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to get the rest of the cutback off. I rented a floor buffer with a coating removal tool, we’ll see if that works. Oh, and finally remove the sink, its been so useful but its time.

It took me ten hours with an hour of breaks to get the kitchen from all covered with old vinyl tile to this.

Oh, no problematic plywood patches (unless one is hiding under the sink I guess). The refrigerator alcove is plywood, I don’t know if there ever was wood floor there, but I don’t care - no-one sees it.

[jyl]

Hey greg, if I send up using chemicals to remove that cutback, what should I use?

[gregpark]

Sorry, wasn't near my phone yesterday. Use the rented buffer and avoid chemical clean up if at all possible. Any solvent that removed cut back will require wearing a respirator. How do you plan to deal with that void from the missing wall?

[jyl]

I save the original studs that I’ve taken out, and will use that wood to fill the voids. That is very nice wood - also old-growth, super tight grain.

[gregpark]

Originally Posted by jyl

I save the original studs that I’ve taken out, and will use that wood to fill the voids. That is very nice wood - also old-growth, super tight grain.

If you just fill in the wall void, the butt joints will all line up and stick out like a sore thumb. Everything considered including the amount of prep time involved yet, the wall trench problem, and the elevation difference; at this point I time I would urge you to consider tearing out the Fir and installing ¼" thick click together LVT flooring over the 45° subfloor. A nice, clean, maintenance free, water proof forever floor that will save you a ton of time and labor. It will also look more uniform and actually correct in your kitchen. The kitchen floor would then be pretty much level with the rest of the house. It's available in any species and level of rustic look. Gray, brown or combination.

[jyl]

Quick report from the field.

The floor buffer with coating removal tool is not bad. It requires many passes - on areas with not too much cutback, maybe 10 or 15 passes. On the thickest areas of cutback - solid black - the tool doesn’t do much. I guess it will eventually work but will take forever.

EDIT: actually, FK the buffer. It just caught on who knows what and sprayed splinters of floor from a gouged out board that now gets added to my fixit list. Done with the buffer.

The best tool for the thickest areas is my PaintShaver Pro, the same tool I used to strip my house siding to bare wood last year. This patch took 30 seconds.

The PaintShaver cuts off the cutback as easily as it cuts off many layers of paint, typically one pass and you’re at bare wood. It leaves a raw, rough, clean wood surface that will need sanding. Plus it has better dust collection than the buffer. It won’t gouge the wood as the buffer can if something goes wrong. It is more effort to use, though.

[jyl]

This area took about 5 minutes. I mean, I’ve spent almost as much time posting about it than it took to do it.

[jyl]

No LVT. I want a floor that is wood, not a photograph of wood. And preferably the original wood. The houses in my ‘hood are expensive and most are a century old, and people get very into restored and original. I’ve never been in a house with a LVT/LVP kitchen in this neighborhood - basements, sure, but never kitchens. It would stick out and probably devalue the house.

I’m about 98% done with the cut-back removal and stripping. It took about ten hours. There are some corners the PaintShaver can’t reach, so I think those will be heat gun and hand scraper or maybe the scraper attachment of the multitool.

This process has turned out to be very similar to stripping my house siding to bare wood last summer. I repaired and saved all the old siding, even the parts that people said had to be replaced. It was all clear grain cedar, old growth I assume, single boards over 20’ long. Similarly, I’m going to repair and save this old growth fir floor.

So, I’ve started taking stock of what needs to be done.

There’s the floor trench. I’m now thinking of getting some fir - maybe even old stuff, we have a mandatory “deconstruction” rule for old houses here, so perhaps I can find some - and blending the floor trench in with the rest of the floor. I can rip it down and cut tongues and grooves.

There are about four areas, each a few inches long, where the surface of boards are splintered or damaged. I figure on using a router with plunge bit to mill out the damaged area to say 1/4”, then inserting new or old wood, sort of an inlay idea.

There are visible rows of screws in a couple places, where the boards must have squeaked. I figure on removing the screws, countersinking, replacing the scews, and covering them with wood plugs.

There are two places, narrow strips, where the wood is missing and someone (floor guys I’d guess) filled those with something like plaster. One of those is visible in the pics below. There are a couple of round holes, where a pipe presumably used to come up through the floor, also plugged with plaster. I will get that plaster out and patch with wood. Fortunately none of those areas are too visible.

(I figured out why there was a thin layer of plaster in various parts of the floor. Those were places where there was no vinyl tile or the vinyl tile was so degraded it had to be removed. The floor guys applied a thin layer of plaster to build those areas up to be level with the vinyl tiles, before putting on the plywood.)

There is an area under the former dishwasher location where the wood is darkened, from moisture I imagine. I suspect it’ll look that way under the sink cabinet when I pull that. I am looking for some way to lighten those areas. They will be under the new cabinets, technically visible (since the new cabinets have legs) but not really noticeable. So I might just not worry about it. I’m going to have a sheet metal place make a drip tray with drain hose fitting, for the new D/W location and maybe the new sink cabs.

There is a rectangular opening in the floor by the range wall, that has a piece of plywood in it. I imagine this used to be a floor vent or something? Anyway, I’ll keep it - eventually I need to bring makeup air into the kitchen and that might be a handy spot.

Here are some pics. The color variation doesn’t stand out when viewed in person; the camera picks it out.





My back hurts. Turns out, yes the Paintshaver will strip the floor quickly, but you’re standing with feet apart, leaning way forward, almost touching the floor with both hands, pulling the tool back and forth, the whole time. As I’m not a giraffe or a yoga girl, it only takes a short time for that to start aching.

Glad that’s done.

[look 171]

Don't you just love that paint removal tool? When one of my guy see that thing out, he cries.

Is that the only place that need patching where the old wall goes? If you are hard set on keeping that floor, I suggest you remove some of that section and lace in the proper flooring and sand and finish. Having a straight seam look like crap. Do you have a table saw? Most of that fir can be had and mill to thickness and even cut tongue and groove on a simple table saw or a router table. Get Vertical Grain Doug Fir and mill small batch enough for the patch work. How thick is that floor? You might be able to use hydrogen peroxide to get that dark satin out?

If more then 20-30 pieces of flooring is needed, I would get it milled at a local flooring place or large lumber yard. Ask around and they should steering you toward the right place. I bill the clients for it but in your case, it is only a few hours of work. The result will be great.

[gregpark]

Correct. Find yourself some 1x Fir and splice in to eliminate that trench. No T&G, you'd have to pull up half the floor and re assemble. Top nail with a finish nailer and fill. The floor is going to be very rustic anyway and you won't notice the filled nail holes. Use your oscillating saw to square off the existing board ends receiving the new boards and keep the butt joints well spaced. Distress the new boards to blend in. This is a very common project for us and I keep a large stack of 1x4 Fir stored in the shop just for projects exactly like yours. Now that you've got all that old flooring out and decided to refinish the underlying Fir your work has just begun. That's why I was trying to steer you into a new floor. Unless you've done it before people don't realize the steps you need to take to make it look like it was there from the beginning. I've done hundreds of restored floors so it's routine for my crew. You're taking the plunge so hats off but you're work has just begun! Just don't take short cuts and It'll pay off in the end off in the end.